Tag: tutorials

25 Crucial Questions to Ask Before Outsourcing Your Digital Marketing To An Agency
Asking the right questions to evaluate a digital marketing agency before outsourcing your marketing needs is important. The questions below will help to ensure a perfect fit and a successful long-term partnership.

You’ve researched the costs and benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing needs to an agency vs building an in-house marketing team and decided that outsourcing is the more cost-effective option.

Now, you just need to find the right partner.

In this article, we list the essential questions you should ask before outsourcing to find the right agency for your needs and explain why asking these questions is vitally important for the success of your business.

We’ve grouped these questions into the following categories:
- Questions To Ask A Digital Marketing Agency Before Outsourcing
- Successfully Interviewing Digital Agencies – Additional Tips
Questions To Ask A Digital Marketing Agency Before Outsourcing

Navigating the vast digital marketing landscape can be overwhelming. To ensure your business’s online visibility and growth, it’s important to find the perfect digital marketing agency that can not only provide tailored marketing solutions, but also help you achieve your desired goals through innovative, data-driven strategies.

Asking the right questions is crucial in determining the best fit for your specific marketing needs. To save you countless hours of research and time-wasting, we’ve compiled the list below. It includes all the questions to ask a digital marketing agency before outsourcing your marketing initiatives.

Note: If you’re a digital agency, use the questions below to help you gain a better understanding of your business and to position your services more competitively (go here for details on how to list your agency in our directory).

Agency Background and Experience

The questions below focus on understanding the agency’s overall experience and expertise in digital marketing. Ask these questions to help you determine if the agency has a proven track record of success within your industry or with similar businesses, to ensure they have the knowledge and skills needed to drive results for your business.

1. What is your experience in digital marketing? How long have you been in the industry?

Understanding the agency’s experience and longevity in the industry helps you to evaluate their expertise and stability. This question helps you assess the agency’s expertise and industry knowledge. A digital marketing agency with a proven track record of experience is more likely to have the expertise to handle your marketing needs effectively.

2. What sets your digital marketing agency apart from your competitors?

It’s important to identify the agency’s unique selling proposition, differentiating factors, or innovative approaches that make them stand out. Understanding the agency’s distinctive offerings can help your business make a more informed decision and ensure that you are choosing the right partner to help you achieve your goals.

3. Can you provide examples of digital marketing campaigns or projects you have worked on in the past and their outcomes?

Reviewing the agency’s portfolio and case studies can help you evaluate their past work and outcomes, assess their track record of success, and gauge their creativity, strategy, ability, and effectiveness to achieve results.

4. Do you have experience working with businesses in our industry or similar industries? How do you tailor your digital marketing strategies to different industries?

Businesses with experience in your industry will be better prepared to handle the unique challenges, trends, and audience behavior of your industry and develop targeted and effective marketing strategies and campaigns that cater to these unique needs.

Asking this question will help you find out if the agency has relevant experience and knowledge about the sector and the markets your business operates in.

Digital Marketing Services and Approach

The questions below are designed to gain insights into the agency’s specific digital marketing services and their strategic approach to driving success. This includes their process for developing and implementing digital marketing strategies, as well as their knowledge and experience in specialized areas such as content marketing, SEO, and social media marketing.

5. What digital marketing services do you offer? (e.g. SEO, PPC, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, etc.)

Different agencies may have different areas of expertise, like SEO, PPC, or social media. Knowing the agency’s core services will help you to determine if they have the capabilities to meet your digital marketing needs and align with your business goals.

6. How do you approach developing a digital marketing strategy for a business? Can you provide an overview of your process?

A well-defined strategy is essential for successful digital marketing campaigns. This question helps you assess the agency’s strategic thinking and planning process and understand how they create customized marketing strategies and what steps are involved in their process.

7. What is your approach to content creation and content marketing? How do you ensure that the content is aligned with our brand and messaging?

Content is a crucial aspect of digital marketing. Understanding the agency’s approach to content creation, quality, relevance, and alignment with your brand helps to ensure that your content marketing efforts are effective.

8. How do you handle social media marketing? Can you provide examples of social media campaigns you have managed?

Social media is a prominent digital marketing channel. This question helps you assess the agency’s experience and approach to social media marketing, their capabilities and their ability to to create and manage successful social media campaigns that will generate engagement and growth through various platforms.

9. How do you approach search engine optimization (SEO)? Can you provide examples of SEO strategies you have implemented for other clients?

SEO is critical for online visibility. Inquiring about the agency’s approach to SEO and their past strategies and proven successes can help you assess their expertise in optimizing websites for search engines, and evaluate their ability to improve your search engine visibility and drive organic traffic to your site.

10. How do you handle paid advertising campaigns, such as pay-per-click (PPC) or Google Ads? Can you provide examples of successful paid advertising campaigns you have managed?

Paid advertising can be an effective way to boost online visibility. This question helps you evaluate the agency’s expertise and ability to manage paid advertising campaigns effectively and their proficiency to generate desired outcomes a positive return on ad spend.

11. How do you handle email marketing campaigns? Can you provide examples of successful email marketing campaigns you have executed?

Understanding the agency’s approach to email marketing, including their strategy, segmentation, and automation, can help you assess their ability to create and execute effective email campaigns that drive engagement and conversions.

12. What is your approach to website design and development? Do you offer website design and development services or work with external partners?

Your website is a critical digital marketing asset. Knowing the agency’s approach to website design and development helps you assess their expertise in creating websites that are user-friendly, visually appealing, and aligned with your brand.

Tools, Technologies, and Data Security

The questions below are critical for understanding the agency’s technical capabilities and their commitment to data security. Asking these questions will help to elucidate the digital marketing tools and technologies they utilize, any additional costs associated with these tools, and their approaches to ensuring the protection of your business and customer data.

This is important because you will need to trust the agency and provide them with access to everything they need to run your marketing effectively – login details to your site, Google Analytics and social media accounts, etc.

13. What tools and technologies do you use for digital marketing? Are there any additional costs associated with these tools?

Knowing the tools and technologies used by the agency helps you understand their capabilities and efficiency in managing and executing effective digital marketing campaigns, and allows you to assess any additional costs associated with these tools.

14. How do you handle data privacy and security? How do you ensure that our business and customer data are protected?

Protecting your business and customer data is paramount.Â Data privacy and security are critical concerns, and asking about the agency’s data privacy and security practices ensures that they follow industry standards and will take appropriate measures to safeguard your sensitive information.

Performance Metrics and Reporting

Gauging the success of digital marketing campaigns requires effective tracking and reporting of performance metrics. The questions below address the agency’s process for measuring campaign success, the key performance indicators they track, and their approach to reporting and communicating these metrics to their clients.

15. How do you measure the success of digital marketing campaigns? What metrics do you track, and how do you report on them?

Clear reporting and analysis are crucial for optimizing campaigns and achieving desired results. Understanding the agency’s approach to measuring campaign success and the metrics they track allows you to evaluate their performance and accountability, set up realistic expectations, and evaluate their performance and campaign success over time.

This question will also help you understand if the agency’s performance metrics align with your business goals.

16. How do you handle reporting and communication with clients? How often will we receive reports, and what will be included in them?

Clear and regular communication is essential for a successful partnership. This question helps establish expectations for reporting frequency and content. It’s important to ensure there’s open communication and trust between your business and the agency.

You want clear and consistent communication about the progress of your campaigns in order to make timely adjustments and ensure that the campaign’s messaging and strategy remains aligned with your goals.

Collaboration and Coordination

Partnering with a digital marketing agency often involves extensive collaboration and communication with your internal team. The questions below cover how the agency plans to involve your in-house team, as well as their methods for coordinating with various stakeholders to ensure seamless execution and synergy.

17. How do you handle communication and coordination with our internal marketing team or other stakeholders? How much will you involve the in-house team?Â Who will be working on our account?

Effective communication, reporting, and coordination with internal teams and stakeholders are key to a successful agency-client relationship and allow for a smooth collaboration between your business and the agency.

If you have an internal marketing team or other stakeholders, coordinating with them is essential for successful digital marketing campaigns.

Asking the agency about their approach to coordinating and collaborating with your internal team or other stakeholders helps you understand how they will work with your team and ensure smooth communication and coordination throughout the campaign.

Knowing the main contact person(s) and the team structure will help to foster a healthy working relationship and keep communication streamlined. Understanding the dynamics of the team that will handle your digital marketing efforts, the agency’s reporting frequency, format, and how communication channels will be maintained helps you ensure that you receive regular updates and insights on your campaigns.

Pricing and Timeline

Understanding the costs associated with digital marketing services is essential for budgeting and decision-making. The questions below focus on the agency’s pricing structure, any additional fees, and their expectations concerning timelines and results. This information will help you plan your marketing efforts more effectively and determine if the agency is a good fit for your financial goals.

18. What is your pricing structure? How do you charge for your services, and are there any additional costs or fees?

It’s important to have a clear understanding of costs associated with outsourcing your digital marketing efforts to the agency. Understanding the agency’s pricing structure, payment terms, and any additional costs associated with their services helps you assess if their services are within your budget and if they provide value for the investment.

It’s important to have clarity on pricing and budget to avoid any surprise costs, hidden fees, or misunderstandings later on.

19. What are your expectations in terms of timelines and results for our digital marketing campaigns?

Setting realistic expectations and understanding the agency’s anticipated timelines and results ensure transparency and optimized goal-setting for both parties.

Additional Questions to Gauge Agency Success

Asking the questions below will provide additional insights into the agency’s overall success and adaptability in the ever-changing digital marketing landscape. Topics covered in this section include staying updated with industry trends, providing references and case studies, internal marketing strategies, expected result timeframes, and the agency’s ability to learn and bounce back from failures.

20. How do you stay updated with the latest trends and changes in technology and the digital marketing landscape?

The digital marketing landscape is constantly changing. It is essential for the agency to stay updated with the latest trends, algorithm changes, and best practices, and be able to adapt their strategies accordingly.

You want to know how flexible and adaptable their strategies are to changes in industry trends and technology to ensure they can adapt to changes in the market, deliver timely, effective and up-to-date marketing efforts, and maintain their relevance and competitiveness.

21. Can you provide references from previous clients or case studies of successful digital marketing campaigns you have executed?

Case studies and client references provide insights into the agency’s credibility, ability to drive results, and client satisfaction. Ask for examples of successful campaigns and whether you can contact existing clients to obtain feedback, verify the agency’s claims, and get insights from their previous clients about their experience, communication, and results achieved.

22. Which strategies do you use for your brand, and what has been working out for you?

This question is important because it helps evaluate the agency’s own digital marketing efforts and identify the strategies that have been successful in promoting their brand. By learning about the approaches they use for themselves, you can better understand their expertise and potential effectiveness in implementing those strategies for your business.

Asking this question also showcases the agency’s ability to adapt and innovate in the digital marketing space, demonstrating their willingness to stay ahead of the curve and continuously test and refine techniques. Furthermore, it shows that they practice what they preach and can be a credible partner for your business.

23. What is the onboarding process for new clients?

Understanding the agency’s onboarding process is crucial to ensuring a smooth and efficient transition into the working relationship. This question helps reveal the agency’s organizational skills, communication strategies, and their commitment to providing a seamless integration for new clients.

The response to this question will offer insights into their process for gathering necessary information, setting expectations and goals, assigning key personnel, and establishing communication channels. Additionally, it allows you to assess the agency’s dedication to understanding your business, objectives, and target audience, which is vital for creating and implementing tailored and effective digital marketing strategies.

A clear and well-defined onboarding process also demonstrates the agency’s professionalism and experience, ensuring that they are well-versed in managing projects and working with different teams. This information helps build trust and confidence that the agency can effectively address your unique digital marketing needs and cultivate a productive partnership.

24. When can I expect to start seeing results?

Setting realistic expectations regarding the timeline for results is crucial for both the client and the agency. This question allows you to gauge the agency’s transparency and the effectiveness of their strategies in delivering quantifiable results. It is essential while forming a suitable partnership, as it prevents potential misunderstandings or disappointments in later stages of the project.

The agency’s response helps you understand the typical timeframes associated with different digital marketing strategies and the time needed to achieve desired outcomes. It also provides an insight into the agency’s ability to deliver on their promises and their overall performance.

25. What are some of your recent failures, and how did you remediate them?

This question is not only about learning from their mistakes but also assessing the agency’s adaptability, transparency, and problem-solving capabilities. The willingness to share and acknowledge their failures demonstrates a proactive learning attitude and a commitment to continuous improvement, which are essential traits for a successful digital marketing agency.

Inquiring about their remediation efforts helps you understand the agency’s resilience when faced with challenges and their ability to bounce back and learn from their mistakes. This insight can inspire confidence in their services and provide a better understanding of their approach to overcoming setbacks and unforeseen obstacles.

Successfully Interviewing Digital Agencies – Additional Tips

It’s important to thoroughly vet and interview digital marketing agencies to ensure they align with your business goals, have the necessary expertise and experience, and can deliver results.

In addition to the questions listed above, the tips below will help you make an informed decision about selecting the right digital marketing agency for your business:

Contract and Terms

Review the agency’s contract and terms of service thoroughly and clarify any doubts before committing to their service. This will help you understand the legal and contractual aspects of the engagement and ensure that you are comfortable with their terms and conditions.

Team Expertise and Qualifications

Ask about the qualifications, certifications, and expertise of the agency’s team members. This will help you assess their skills, knowledge, and experience in digital marketing. A qualified and experienced team is more likely to deliver effective results for your campaigns.

Communication Channels and Response Time

Clear communication channels and timely response are crucial for successful collaboration with a digital marketing agency. Inquire about the agency’s preferred communication channels and their typical response time. This will help you set expectations and ensure smooth communication throughout the engagement.

Flexibility and Adaptability

Digital marketing is dynamic, and strategies may need to be adjusted based on results and changing market conditions. As covered earlier, it’s important to ask the agency about their flexibility and adaptability to changes. This will help you assess their ability to adjust strategies and tactics as needed to optimize results.

Client Retention Rate

Inquire about the agency’s client retention rate. This helps you gauge their ability to retain long-term clients. A high client retention rate is a positive indicator of client satisfaction and successful outcomes.

Ask For a Proposal or Plan

Request a proposal or plan from the agency. This allows you to evaluate their approach, creativity, and strategy in detail. A well-prepared proposal or plan provides insights into their understanding of your business, market, and objectives, and helps you assess their suitability for your digital marketing needs.

Additional Tip: Choose Local

Although we live in a global economy that allows us to do business with anyone, anywhere in the world, keep in mind that international laws can be complicated. Should your relationship with an agency go sour for any reason, you could find yourself in a difficult situation facing complex, challenging, and expensive options for resolution.

For this reason, we recommend hiring an agency within your own country or within the same region your business legally operates in.

Unlock the Full Potential of Your Digital Marketing Strategies with WPMU DEV’s Agency Partner Directory

If you plan to outsource your digital marketing needs to an external agency, it’s important to find the right partner that aligns with your business values, expectations, and objectives.

Asking the essential questions listed above when hiring a digital marketing agency is crucial to assess their expertise, experience, approach, and compatibility with your business goals. It will help you make an informed decision and choose an agency that can effectively meet your digital marketing needs and goals, drive successful outcomes for your business, and provide you with the backing and support you need to run a successful marketing strategy.

WPMU DEV’s Agency Partner directory is an invaluable resource that we have developed to help you find reliable agencies with the expertise and experience to help your business maximize online visibility and growth and ensure that your marketing goals are met and exceeded.

If you are ready to outsource your digital marketing needs, then familiarize yourself with the above questions and search through our directory of digital marketing agencies. You will be sure to find a suitable partner that will perfectly meet your needs.

And if you provide web development or digital marketing services, consider becoming listed on our directory. For more details, go here: Become a Partner.
21.04.2023
Maximize Your Marketing Budget and Outsource Your Digital Marketing to an Agency
From cost savings to leveraging expertise, outsourcing your digital marketing needs to our Agency Partners is a smart and cost-effective decision, especially if your business has limited resources.

Is your business struggling to keep up with the constantly changing marketing landscape? Hiring external professionals or agencies to handle certain tasks or functions that would normally be done in-house will provide significant benefits and advantages.

In recent years, outsourcing has become a prevalent business strategy, especially for businesses looking to scale up, and marketing is no exception.

In fact, a recent study showed that 83% of small businesses will maintain or increase their spending on outsourced business services in 2023.

Digital marketing is one of the services that businesses commonly outsource.

Digital marketing is the most outsourced service after accounting and IT. Source: Zippia

In this article, we will explore the many advantages of outsourcing your digital marketing efforts to an agency and why this can turn out to be more cost-effective for your business in the long run.

We’ll cover the following areas:
Why Outsource Your Digital Marketing Needs

As part of your own digital marketing strategy, your business will have to decide whether to handle its digital marketing needs in-house, outsource to a digital marketing agency, or a combination of both.

To understand some of the key reasons why you may want to consider outsourcing your marketing, let’s start by looking at content creation, which, according to research on digital marketing trends, is the area that many businesses are increasingly focusing more of their efforts on.

Many businesses today need to focus on content creation. Source: Digital Marketing Trends 2023

However, businesses also face significant challenges trying to meet their digital marketing strategic goals. These challenges include having limited budget and resources, lacking systems and processes to generate content and collect data, and more.

Meeting digital marketing goals can be challenging for many businesses. Source: Digital Marketing Trends 2023

Businesses need to engage in marketing activities to remain competitive, but many struggle to afford and manage the marketing processes required to create and deliver effective results.

Content creation, however, is only one aspect of your digital marketing needs. What about advertising, analytics and reporting, branding, SEO, email marketing, video marketing, social media, etc.? These are also necessary for an effective digital marketing strategy.

Since we are focusing on whether outsourcing your digital marketing needs is more cost-effective than building an in-house marketing team, let’s start with a brief overview of the benefits of outsourcing.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Digital Marketing Needs

Outsourcing your marketing needs to a digital marketing agency offers a number of benefits, including:

Cost Savings

One of the key advantages of outsourcing your marketing needs is cost savings. Hiring and maintaining an in-house marketing team is expensive, as it involves costs such as salaries, benefits, office space, equipment, and training.

Outsourcing will help to avoid these costs as you can simply pay for the services you need on a project basis or through a retainer, depending on your requirements. This will result in significant cost savings and increased ROI, especially for SMEs with limited budgets.

Flexibility and Scalability

Outsourcing provides you with the flexibility to scale your marketing efforts up or down based as needed, without the need for permanent hires or layoffs.

During busy seasons, you can increase your marketing efforts, and during slow seasons, you can scale back, without having to worry about hiring or firing employees.

This flexibility allows your business to adapt its marketing strategies to changing market conditions without the overhead costs associated with an in-house team.

Access to Specialized Expertise and Resources

Marketing is a complex field that requires expertise in various areas such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), social media management, content creation, content marketing, email marketing, and more.

Outsourcing your marketing needs to an agency will give your business access to a team of professionals with specialized skills, expertise, cutting-edge tools, technologies, and resources that may not be available or feasible to invest in-house.

For example, external marketing agencies can provide your business with access to cutting-edge technologies that will help to analyze data, track performance, and optimize your marketing campaigns, resulting in more effective and targeted marketing strategies that will drive better results.

Professionalism and Experience

Marketing agencies are specialized entities with a wealth of experience in handling marketing campaigns for different clients across various industries. They have a pulse on the latest marketing trends, strategies, and best practices, and can leverage their expertise to create effective marketing plans tailored to your business goals.

Additionally, agencies often have a diverse team with specialists in different areas, allowing them to bring a well-rounded approach to your marketing efforts.

Time and Resource Savings

Outsourcing your marketing needs frees up valuable time and internal resources for your business to focus on its core competencies.

Instead of spending time on marketing tasks, your in-house team can concentrate on their primary roles, leading to increased productivity and efficiency.

The Hidden Costs of In-House Digital Marketing

In-house marketing may seem like a viable option, but it also comes with often overlooked hidden costs that can add up over time, making outsourcing to a digital marketing agency more cost-effective in the long run.

Some of the hidden costs of in-house marketing include:

Hidden Cost #1: Training and Development

Keeping up with the rapidly changing marketing landscape requires ongoing training and development.

If you plan to build an in-house marketing team, then expect to invest in continuous education, certifications, workshops, and seminars to ensure that your team stays up-to-date with the latest marketing trends and best practices.

These training costs will quickly add up.

Hidden Cost #2: Employee Turnover

Employee turnover is a common challenge in the marketing industry with professionals often changing jobs or seeking better opportunities elsewhere.

This can result in significant costs associated with hiring, onboarding, and training new employees. Additionally, turnover and mis-hires can disrupt marketing campaigns and strategies, leading to delays and added costs.

Hidden Cost #3: Equipment and Software Costs

An in-house marketing team requires investing in technology and infrastructure like specialized equipment and software tools to support your marketing efforts and execute tasks effectively.

Investing in website development and maintenance, hardware, software licenses, subscriptions, marketing automation tools, CRM systems, analytics platforms, and other marketing technologies is expensive. Moreover, these tools require regular updates and maintenance, which will further increase costs over time.

Hidden Cost #4: Management and Overhead Costs

Managing an in-house marketing team requires additional overhead costs, such as salaries, benefits, office space, utilities, and other operational expenses. This will strain your budget and divert resources from other core functions.

Hidden Cost #5: Opportunity Cost of Diverting Resources

Doing digital marketing in-house requires diverting resources like time, effort, and budget from other areas of the business which results in less focus on other critical business operations.

This opportunity cost of diverting resources from other areas of the business can be significant and could seriously impact overall business performance.

Hidden Cost #6: Performance Monitoring and Optimization Efforts

In-house digital marketing requires investing time and effort into monitoring and optimizing marketing campaigns for optimal performance.

This includes analyzing data, conducting A/B testing, making adjustments to strategies, and continually optimizing campaigns for better results. These ongoing efforts require time and expertise, which may be overlooked when you consider the total cost of in-house digital marketing efforts.

Hidden Cost #7: Risk of Skill Gaps and Burnout

Running an in-house digital marketing team can result in skill gaps and burnout. Your team may need to handle various digital marketing tasks simultaneously, which often results in skill gaps in certain areas or even burnout due to the workload.

The net effect of this is decreased productivity, increased turnover, and additional costs associated with training or hiring new personnel.

Hidden Cost #8: Risks of Campaign Failures

Marketing campaigns do not always yield the desired results and in-house marketing efforts can fail to deliver on expected ROI.

When marketing campaigns do not perform as expected, it often results in wasted resources, lost opportunities, and additional costs to rectify the situation.

This risk can be mitigated by outsourcing to a marketing agency that has the expertise and experience to create effective marketing strategies and campaigns.

Hidden Costs Of Outsourcing Digital Marketing

Like in-house marketing, outsourcing also has hidden costs, so let’s explore these briefly:

Hidden Cost #1: Management and Coordination Efforts

Outsourcing your digital marketing requires spending time communicating with the agency, providing feedback and approvals, and managing the overall relationship.

The amount of effort and time required for managing agency relationships is often underestimated, so you need to have realistic expectations and include these in your cost calculations.

Hidden Cost #2: Lack of Direct Control and Visibility

Outsourcing your digital marketing needs often results in a lack of direct control and visibility over marketing efforts, and challenges monitoring and overseeing the agency’s activities, resulting in potential misalignment with your business objectives or ineffective strategies, and hidden costs in the form of lost opportunities, delays, or rework.

Hidden Cost #3: Dependence on Agency Expertise and Availability

Outsourcing typically leads to some type of dependency on the agency’s expertise, knowledge, performance, and availability. This can result in potential delays or additional costs finding alternative solutions.

Hidden Cost #4: Contractual Obligations and Fees

Outsourcing often involves contractual obligations and fees that your businesse may overlook. These include contract termination fees, additional charges for changes or revisions, or unexpected fees for using certain tools or technologies.

It’s crucial to thoroughly review and understand the contractual terms and fees associated with outsourcing digital marketing to avoid hidden costs.

Hidden Cost #5: Potential Quality or Cultural Misalignment

Another hidden cost of outsourcing is potential quality or cultural misalignment. If the agency’s work does not meet your expected quality standards or align with your business’s values and culture, you could experience additional costs to rectify or align the work. These include rework, revisions, or additional efforts to align the marketing efforts with your brand and messaging.

Outsource Your Digital Marketing Needs or Build An In-House Team?

As we have just seen, while outsourcing your digital marketing needs to an agency has many benefits, there may also be associated hidden costs, so it’s important to evaluate the pros and cons before deciding whether to outsource or run your digital marketing in-house.

Every business has unique needs and preferences, so it’s important to do your own research and cost-analysis.

Before making any decision, first calculate the cost of running your marketing in-house versus outsourcing. Various sites provide comparison tables that can help you with this.

For example, the table below from HubSpot illustrates an estimated general cost of putting together a one-month digital marketing campaign in-house (calculated as 40+ hours of work in-house), versus the cost you could potentially expect to pay if outsourcing to a digital agency (around $6000).

Components of a marketing campaign completed in-house versus potential cost of outsourcing to an agency. Source: HubSpot

Note: When looking at the above, keep in mind that:

a) The table does not take into account additional costs like salaries, training, technology, research, developing marketing expertise, etc.

b) Some of the estimated number of hours depicted in the table assigned to areas like creating blog articles and an email nurturing series seem to underestimate the time it takes to create high-quality content.

WebFX offers a great breakdown of digital marketing costs as illustrated in this summarized table…

Digital Marketing Costs table. Source: WebFX

There are other sites that provide lists or breakdowns of expected costs associated with outsourcing your digital marketing needs, including the article we wrote on additional marketing services web developers can offer.

For example, this consultancy website offers a breakdown of estimated costs for various digital marketing services, including copywriting, SEO, PPC, and video, email, and social marketing services.

For estimated salaries for digital marketing roles, we recommend visitng sites like Glassdoor.com or Indeed.com.

Job sites like Indeed.com provide salary guides for digital marketing roles.

Another way to try and compare the cost of running your own in-house marketing vs outsourcing is to use tools like DigitalStoryteller’s cost comparison calculator.

Enter your details into a tool like DigitalStoryteller’s calculator to compare the cost of in-house marketing vs outsourcing.

To calculate the cost-effectiveness of using an in-house vs outsourced marketing team, look up estimated salaries using the links provided above and then enter your own figures into the calculator for fields like employee benefits and payroll taxes.

Tips for Outsourcing Your Marketing Needs to an Agency

Let’s say you’ve assessed the marketing needs of your business, done a comparison of costs, and decided that outsourcing is the more cost-effective option. Use the tips below to ensure a successful outsourcing experience:

1. Define Your Business Goals

Before outsourcing your marketing needs, clearly define your business goals and expectations. Communicate your marketing objectives, target audience, budget, and timeline to the agency to ensure that they align with your business objectives.

2. Research and Select the Right Agency

Do thorough research to find a reputable marketing agency that has a proven track record of success. Consider their expertise, experience, client testimonials, and case studies to evaluate their capabilities. Request proposals and compare pricing models to select an agency that fits your budget and requirements.

3. Establish Clear Communication Channels

Communication is key to successful outsourcing. Establish clear communication channels with the agency, including regular meetings, reporting, and updates. Define roles, responsibilities, and expectations to ensure a smooth working relationship.

4. Set Realistic Expectations

Outsourcing your marketing needs does not guarantee overnight success. In fact, according to marketing guru Neil Patel, it can take months for digital marketing to generate results.

So, set realistic expectations and understand that it takes time to see results. Trust the expertise of the agency and allow them to implement their strategies effectively.

5. Monitor and Evaluate Results

Regularly monitor and evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns with the agency. Review reports, analytics, and metrics to measure the success of your marketing efforts. Provide feedback to the agency and collaborate on any necessary adjustments to optimize results.

Outsourcing To A Digital Marketing Agency – Next Steps

When it comes to evaluating whether to outsource or keep your marketing in-house, it all boils down to this:

If it’s more profitable to focus your time and resources on your business and outsource your marketing needs externally, then you are better off outsourcing and utilizing your time and resources to find and serve new and existing clients.

You will experience cost savings in terms of opportunity cost, as you can now potentially generate more revenue from activities that outweigh the expense of outsourcing, focus on your core services, and manage your time and resources more efficiently.

If your research and calculations show that outsourcing your marketing needs:
1. Is more cost-effective than running an in-house marketing team,
2. Will help to improve brand awareness, increase website traffic, deliver higher conversion rates, and drive business growth
3. Provides desirable benefits like cost savings, the flexibility to scale your marketing efforts based on your needs and budget, access to specialized expertise and professionalism, time savings, and more
Then the next logical step is to reach out to a digital marketing agency and begin exploring what services they offer and how they can help you achieve your marketing goals.

If you don’t know where to start, we recommend putting a list of questions together and checking out our digital marketing agency directory.

Our agency partners are experienced professionals who can assist you with all your digital marketing needs.

WPMU DEV can help you find the right digital marketing agency to outsource all your marketing needs.

To view all listed agencies and their available services, visit our Agency Partner directoryÂ or contact our 24/7 support team if you have any questions.

Note: If you are a digital marketing agency or provide web development services, learn how to get your business listed on our directory.
21.04.2023
How to Prevent Clients from Deactivating WordPress Plugins
Do you want to prevent clients from accidentally deactivating WordPress plugins?

If you build websites for other people, then you probably have a few important plugins that you install on every client site. If a client accidentally deactivates one of these essential plugins, then it could break their site completely.

In this article, we’ll show you how to stop clients from deactivating WordPress plugins.

Why Prevent Clients from Deactivating WordPress Plugins?

If you create websites for other people, then you may have a list of must-have WordPress plugins that you install on every site. These might be security plugins that protect the client against hackers and malicious code.

You might even use plugins to automate crucial WordPress maintenance tasks such as creating regular backups or deleting spam comments.

If the client accidentally deactivates one of these plugins then it could make their website vulnerable to attack, or affect how it works. In the worst-case scenario, it might even break their website completely.

Even though this isn’t your fault, it’s still a bad client experience and could damage your reputation. With that being said, let’s see how you can stop clients from accidentally deactivating plugins in WordPress.

Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.
Method 1. Using the Default WordPress User Roles (No Plugin Required)

WordPress comes with a simple but powerful user management system where each user has different capabilities based on their assigned role.

When you install WordPress, it creates the following user roles automatically:
By default, only the Administrator has permission to manage plugins, which includes deactivating plugins.

With that in mind, we recommend creating a single admin account for your clients so they have a way to manage their sites. You can then create non-admin accounts for anyone else who needs access but doesn’t require admin privileges.

Without admin rights, this means the majority of your clients won’t be able to deactivate plugins.

You can use any role for the non-administrator accounts. However, we recommend using Editor as it allows users to create, edit, publish, and delete content, including content created by other people. They just won’t have access to the higher-level WordPress features.

It’s also a good idea to give the Admin account to someone who has experience with WordPress and understands how to manage a WordPress website.

To create an account for one or more clients, go to Users Â» Add New in the WordPress dashboard. You can then type in some information about the person including their name and email address.

With that done, open the Role dropdown and choose the role you want to assign this user, such as Admin or Editor.

When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click on ‘Add New User.’

To create more accounts, simply follow the same process described above. For more on this topic, please see our guide on how to add new users to your WordPress blog.

Method 2. Using the Members Plugin (Create a Custom Client Role)

Sometimes you may need to stop clients from deactivating plugins without restricting their access to other areas.

With that being said, the built-in user roles may not be right for your website. For example, Editors can’t deactivate plugins, but they also can’t add new users or install WordPress themes, which may be a problem for your clients.

If the default user roles aren’t quite right for your client, then you can create a custom role. This role can have exactly the permissions and capabilities the client needs. You can even create different roles for different teams, or even individual employees.

The easiest way to create custom roles is by using the free Members plugin. This plugin allows you to create new roles and then add and remove capabilities to those user roles, including the ability to activate and deactivate WordPress plugins.

This permission removes the Plugins setting from the left-hand menu, as you can see in the following image.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Members plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to Members Â» Add New Role.

In the ‘Enter role name’ field, type in the name you want to use. This will be visible to anyone who has access to the WordPress dashboard.

After that, it’s time to grant and deny permissions.

The left column shows all the different types of content such as reusable blocks and WooCommerce products. Simply click on a tab and youâ€™ll see all the permissions for that content type.

You can then go ahead and check the ‘Grant’ or ‘Deny’ box for each permission. For more detailed instructions, please see our guide on how to add or remove user capabilities.

To stop clients from deactivating plugins, click on the ‘Plugins’ tab on the left.

On this screen, check the ‘Deny’ box on the line that says ‘Activate Plugins.’

When you’re happy with how the user role is set up, click on ‘Add Role.’

You can now assign this role to any user, following the same process described in Method 1.

Method 3. Using Custom PHP (Prevent Clients From Deactivating Specific Plugins)

If you want to stop clients from deactivating all plugins, then you can use one of the methods mentioned above.

However, sometimes you may want to protect essential plugins only, while still giving clients the freedom to deactivate and delete non-essential software.

The best way to protect specific plugins is by adding custom code in WordPress. This allows you to remove the ‘Deactivate’ link for specific plugins.

This is an advanced method, so we don’t recommend it for beginners.

Note: Just be aware that clients can still deactivate any plugin using the Bulk Actions dropdown menu, or with an advanced tool like FTP or phpMyAdmin. However, removing the ‘Deactivate’ link makes it much more difficult for clients to accidentally deactivate an essential plugin.

To start, you’ll need to know the plugin’s file name and where it lives on your server. Typically, these files use the plugin’s name followed by .php, and live inside a folder named after the plugin. For example, the WooCommerce file is named ‘woocommerce.php’ and lives inside a ‘woocommerce’ folder.

However, it’s still worth checking, especially if the plugin has a long, complicated name or multiple words. For example, if you’re using the SR Product 360Â° View plugin to add interactive 360-degree images in WordPress, then its file is named ‘sr.php.’

You can check the file name and location by connecting to the site’s server using an FTP client such as FileZilla, or you can use the file manager of your WordPress hosting cPanel.

If this is your first time using FTP, then you can see our complete guide on how to connect to your site using FTP.

After that, go to /wp-content/plugins/. Here, you’ll see all the different plugins on your site.

Simply find the plugin that you want to protect, and open its folder.

After that, find the .php file.

Now, make a note of the folder name and .php file, as you’ll be using this information in your code. Simply repeat this process for every plugin you want to protect.

With that done, it’s time to add a code snippet to your site. Often, you’ll find guides asking you to add code to the site’s functions.php file.

However, this isn’t recommended as simple errors can cause countless common WordPress errors. You’ll also lose the custom code when you update your WordPress theme.

That’s where WPCode comes in.

WPCode is the best code snippets plugin used by over 1 million WordPress websites. It makes it easy to add custom CSS, HTML, PHP, and more.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the free WPCode plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head over to Code Snippets Â» Add Snippet.

Here, hover your mouse over â€˜Add Your Custom Code.â€™

When it appears, click on â€˜Use snippet.â€™

To start, type in a title for the custom code snippet. This can be anything that helps you identify the snippet in the WordPress dashboard.

After that, open the â€˜Code Typeâ€™ dropdown and select â€˜PHP Snippet.â€™

Now, you’re ready to add the custom PHP. The exact code will vary depending on the plugins you’re protecting, but here’s an template you can use:
```
add_filter( 'plugin_action_links', 'disable_plugin_deactivation', 10, 4 );
function disable_plugin_deactivation( $actions, $plugin_file, $plugin_data, $context ) {

	if ( array_key_exists( 'deactivate', $actions ) && in_array( $plugin_file, array(
		'wpforms/wpforms.php',
		'woocommerce/woocommerce.php'
	)))
		unset( $actions['deactivate'] );
	return $actions;
}
```
Hosted with â¤ï¸ by WPCode

1-click Use in WordPress
This snippet disables deactivation for WPForms and WooCommerce. To protect other plugins, simply replace ‘wpforms/wpforms.php’ and ‘woocommerce/woocommerce.php’ with the folders and file names you got in the previous step.

To disable deactivation for more plugins, simply add them to the code. For example:
```
  'wpforms/wpforms.php',
        'woocommerce/woocommerce.php',
		'service-box/service-box.php'
	
    )))
```
Hosted with â¤ï¸ by WPCode

1-click Use in WordPress
After that, scroll to the â€˜Insertionâ€™ section. WPCode can add your code to different locations, such as after every post, frontend only, or admin only.

We only need to use the PHP code in the WordPress admin area, so click on â€˜Auto Insertâ€™ if it isnâ€™t already selected. Then, open the â€˜Locationâ€™ dropdown menu and choose â€˜Admin only.’

After that, youâ€™re ready to scroll to the top of the screen and click on the â€˜Inactiveâ€™ toggle, so it changes to â€˜Active.â€™

Finally, click on â€˜Save Snippetâ€™ to make the PHP snippet live.

Now, if you select Plugins from the left-hand menu, you’ll see the ‘Deactivate’ link has been removed for those plugins.

If you need to restore the ‘deactivate’ links at any point, then you can disable the code snippet. Simply go to Code Snippets Â» Code Snippet and click the switch next to your snippet to turn it from blue (enabled) to grey (disabled).

You can now deactivate these plugins by heading over to the Plugins menu.

You can also deactivate protected plugins using phpMyAdmin or an FTP client. This may be a good solution if you want to remove a specific plugin, but don’t want to completely disable the code snippet and leave all your protected plugins vulnerable.

To learn more, please see our guide on how to deactivate all plugins when not able to access WP-Admin.

We hope this article helped you learn how to prevent clients from deactivating WordPress plugins. You may also want to see our ultimate guide on how to boost WordPress speed and performance or the best phone services for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Prevent Clients from Deactivating WordPress Plugins first appeared on WPBeginner.
20.04.2023
How to Easily Create Custom WooCommerce Thank You Pages
Do you want to easily create a custom WooCommerce thank you page?

A custom order confirmation is a great way to connect with your customers and get more sales by promoting related products, or even offering an exclusive coupon code.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create a custom WooCommerce thank you page.

Why Customize a WooCommerce Thank You Page in WordPress?

The order confirmation or thank you page may seem like a small part of your online store, but it can actually be a very valuable part of the sales process.

The default WooCommerce thank you page isn’t really optimized for conversions, so we recommend replacing it with a custom page. This page might encourage shoppers to buy more products by offering coupon codes or displaying popular products.

You can also show important information such as the items ordered, the total cost, and shipping information.

With that said, let’s show you how to easily create a custom WooCommerce thank you page, step-by-step. Simply use the links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.
- Method 1. Create a Custom WooCommerce Thank You Page Using FunnelKit
- Method 2. Create a Custom WooCommerce Thank You Page Using a Page Builder
Method 1. Create a Custom WooCommerce Thank You Page Using FunnelKit

The easiest way to create a custom WooCommerce thank you page is by using FunnelKit, formerly known as WooFunnels. It is the best WordPress sales funnel and automation plugin, and comes with ready-made Thank You templates that you can easily add to your online store.

This allows you to create professionally-designed and helpful thank-you pages without having to write a single line of code.

Note: Thereâ€™s also a FunnelKit Pro plugin that comes with more ‘thank you’ templates. However, weâ€™ll be using the free version of FunnelKit as it has everything you need to replace the default WooCommerce thank you page with a custom design.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to FunnelKit Â» Templates and click on the â€˜Checkoutâ€™ button.

Choose a Thank You Page Template

You can now choose from any of FunnelKitâ€™s ready-made templates, or select â€˜Start from scratch.â€™ We recommend using a template as it helps you create a professionally designed Thank You page, fast.

To take a closer look at any template, simply hover your mouse over it and then click on the â€˜Previewâ€™ button when it appears.

FunnelKit will show a preview of the checkout page by default.

To see the thank you design instead, simply select â€˜Thank You Pageâ€™ from the left-hand menu.

When you find a template you want to use, click on â€˜Import This Funnel.â€™

Weâ€™re using the Livewire template in all our images, but you can use any design you want.

At this point, FunnelKit might ask you to install some extra plugins such as SlingBlocks, which adds page-building features to the WordPress block editor.

If you see this message, then click on â€˜Activateâ€™ to get the plugins you need.

After that, type in a name for the custom thank you page. This is just for your reference so you can use anything that will help you identify the page in your WordPress dashboard.

With that done, click on the â€˜Addâ€™ button.

Customize Your WooCommerce Thank You Page

Youâ€™ll now see all the steps that are included in the template.

Since youâ€™re using the free version of FunnelKit, the template includes a thank you page and a custom WooCommerce checkout page, which you’ll need to set up separately. For detailed step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to customize the WooCommerce checkout page.

To go ahead and customize the thank you page, click on its â€˜Editâ€™ link.

You can now click on â€˜Edit Templateâ€™ to open the template in the WordPress block editor.

Note: If youâ€™re using a page builder plugin, then FunnelKit may open the template in a different editor. If this happens, then youâ€™ll need to click on â€˜Switch to WordPress editorâ€™ instead of â€˜Edit Template.â€™

You can now customize the template in exactly the same way you build any WordPress page. Simply click on any block and then fine-tune it using the settings in the right-hand menu and the mini toolbar.

For example, youâ€™ll typically want to replace the placeholder logo with your own custom logo. To do this, click to select the Image block and then select â€˜Replaceâ€™ in the mini toolbar.

Now, either select Open Media Library and choose an image from the WordPress media library, or click on â€˜Uploadâ€™ and select a file from your computer.

After choosing an image, you can add image alt text, change the width, add rounded corners, and more using the settings in the right-hand menu.

Youâ€™ll also want to replace the placeholder text with information about your own online marketplace. Simply click to select any text block and then type in your custom messaging.

You can also change the textâ€™s styling using the settings in the right-hand menu. For example, you can use borders and box shadows to make the text stand out, change the font family, or change the text color in WordPress.

Just don’t modify any of the text inside the [ ] brackets as these tags allow FunnelKit to show personalized content, such as the customerâ€™s name.

Customize the Order Details Widget

After that, scroll to the Order Details section and give it a click. This is a unique widget provided by FunnelKit that shows information about the customerâ€™s order.

This widget works out of the box, but you may want to customize how it looks and the information it shows.

To start, you can change the sectionâ€™s heading by typing into the â€˜Headingâ€™ field.

You can also choose whether to show the product image for every item in the customerâ€™s order, using the â€˜Show Imageâ€™ slider.

Do you sell subscriptions for a membership site, online courses, or similar? Then you may want to show information about the customerâ€™s subscription, such as the price and when their next payment is due.

To add this section, click to expand â€˜Subscriptionâ€™ in the right-hand menu. Then, enable the â€˜Show Subscription Previewâ€™ toggle.

In this section, you can also replace the default â€˜Subscriptionâ€™ text with your own messaging by typing into the ‘Heading’ field.

Similarly, if you sell digital downloads then you can add a â€˜Downloadsâ€™ section to the thank you page. This contains useful information, such as the filename, the number of downloads remaining, and the expiration date.

You can even add a button so shoppers can download their purchase directly from the custom thank you page, which will improve the customer experience.

To add this section, simply click to expand â€˜Downloadsâ€™ in the right-hand menu. You can then add and remove information using the toggles.

You can also replace the default heading and button text with your own messaging.

When youâ€™re happy with how Order Details is set up, you may want to change how it looks by clicking on the â€˜Styleâ€™ tab.

Here, you can change the heading and background colors that are used across the entire order section, or change individual elements within the â€˜Downloadâ€™ or â€˜Subscriptionâ€™ sections.

Edit the Customer Details Widget

With that done, itâ€™s time to look at Customer Details, which is another unique widget provided by FunnelKit.

Simply click to select the Customer Details section and then make your changes in the right-hand menu. For example, you can replace the default headline with your own messaging by typing it into the â€˜Headingâ€™ field.

You can also switch between a multi-column or single-column layout using the â€˜Layoutâ€™ dropdown menu.

After that, you can click on the â€˜Styleâ€™ tab and change the fonts, text size, colors, and more.

Add More Blocks to the Custom Thank You Page

When youâ€™re happy with the changes youâ€™ve made to the template, you may want to add your own content. This can help you improve the customer experience, get more sales, promote your brand, and more.

To add blocks, simply click on the â€˜+â€™ icon in the right-hand corner and then drag any block onto your design. Both FunnelKit, WooCommerce, and WordPress have lots of different blocks you can use, so letâ€™s quickly look at a few examples.
1. Promote Your Other WooCommerce Products
The thank you page may seem like the end of the buyer journey, but it doesn’t have to be. You can use this page to recommend other products the shopper may want to buy. This can get you more sales, while also raising awareness about the other great products you sell.

To see what blocks are available, scroll to the â€˜WooCommerceâ€™ section in the left-hand menu. Here, youâ€™ll find blocks such as Best-Selling Products, Newest Products, On Sale Products, and more.

Simply find the block you want to use and drag it into your design.

With that done, click to select the block and then customize it using the settings in the right-hand menu.
1. Get More Social Media Followers
Social media websites like Twitter and Facebook are the perfect place to promote your products, so youâ€™ll want to get as many followers as possible. With that in mind, itâ€™s a good idea to add social media links to your custom thank you page.

Since these shoppers have already bought from your business, theyâ€™re more likely to follow you on Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and other social platforms.

To get started, simply drag a Social Icons block onto your page. You can then click on the â€˜+â€™ icon and choose the social icon that you want to add.

After making your selection, click on the new icon in the Social Icons block.

In the mini toolbar that appears, type in the URL of the profile you want to link to.

Simply repeat these steps to add all your social media accounts to the block.
1. Give Customers Exclusive Coupon Codes
A coupon code encourages shoppers to buy from you again. For that reason, you may want to add a coupon code to your thank you page. For example, you might offer shoppers a free shipping discount on their next purchase.

You can create a coupon code with WooCommerceâ€™s built-in coupon feature, or by using a coupon code plugin.

After creating a coupon, simply add a Text block to the thank you page. You can then go ahead and type the coupon into this block, along with any other messaging you want to use.

This is a great start, but you may want to show different coupon codes to different customers. For example, you could offer first-time customers a big percentage discount on their next purchase, to help build customer loyalty.

The best way to do this is by upgrading to FunnelKit Builder Pro. This premium plugin has a powerful rules-based engine that allows you to show different coupons to shoppers based on the order total, item count, the WooCommerce payment gateway used, and much more.

Publish the Custom WooCommerce Thank You Page

When youâ€™re happy with how the thank you page is set up, click on â€˜Updateâ€™ to save your changes. After that, click on â€˜Back To Thank You Page.â€™

You can now click on the â€˜Draftâ€™ button next to â€˜Thank you Pageâ€™ and select â€˜Publishâ€™

This will make the thank you page live on your WordPress website.

Method 2. Create a Custom WooCommerce Thank You Page Using a Page Builder

You can also create a custom WooCommerce thank you page using SeedProd. This allows you to design the page using a drag and drop editor, which is perfect if you find the WordPress block editor too restrictive or difficult to use.

SeedProd comes with more than 180 professionally-designed templates including eCommerce templates that you can use to create sales pages and lead squeeze pages.

Even better, SeedProd has full support for WooCommerce and even comes with ready-made WooCommerce blocks that you can simply drag onto your layouts.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: There is a free version of SeedProd, but for this guide, weâ€™ll use the Pro version because it has the built-in WooCommerce blocks we need. It also integrates with the email marketing services you may already be using to promote your online store.

Upon activation, go to SeedProd Â» Settings and enter your license key.

You can find this information under your account on the SeedProd website. After entering the license, click on the â€˜Verify Keyâ€™ button.

Choose a Thank You Page Template

After that, go to SeedProd Â» Landing Pages and click on â€˜Add New Landing Page.â€™

Next, you need to choose a template for your thank you page.

SeedProdâ€™s templates are organized into different campaign types such as coming soon and 404 pages. Since you’re creating a custom WooCommerce thank you page, go ahead and click on the ‘Thank You’ tab.

For this guide, we’ll be using the ‘Order Completed Thank You Page’ template.

Simply hover your mouse over this template and then click on the checkmark icon.

Next, type in a name for your custom WooCommerce thank you page. SeedProd will automatically use this name in its URL, but you can edit the URL if you want.

When youâ€™re happy with the information youâ€™ve entered, click on the â€˜Save and Start Editing the Pageâ€™ button.

This loads the SeedProd editor, which shows a live preview of the page to the right and some settings on the left.

To customize a block, simply click to select it in the page builder, then use the settings in the left-hand menu.

The left-hand menu also has blocks that you can drag onto the order confirmation template.

Get More Sales By Adding an Upsell Section

You may be able to get more sales by promoting other products on the thank you page. One option is to create an upsell block using SeedProd’s sections.

Sections are ready-made collections of blocks that are commonly used together, so they can help you create beautifully-designed pages, fast.

Simply click on the ‘Sections’ tab and then select ‘Hero’ in the left-hand menu. After that, hover your mouse over ‘Hero 2’ and click on the ‘+’ icon when it appears.

This adds the section to your page.

Go ahead and click to select the section’s ‘Image’ block. Then, in the left-hand menu click on ‘Use Your Own Image’ to open the media library.

You can now add an image for the product that you want to upsell.

Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Headline’ block and type in the product title.

Next, click to select the ‘Text’ block and then type in the product description.

You can encourage customers to add this item to their basket, by replacing the placeholder call to action button with an ‘Add To Cart’ button.

To do this, click to select the ‘Call To Action’ block and then click on the ‘Delete Block’ icon.

Next, find the ‘Add To Cart’ block in the menu.

Simply drop this block onto the empty space in your Hero 2 section.

Now, it’s time to connect this button to the right WooCommerce product.

To do this, you’ll need to know the product’s ID. If you don’t know this information, then go to Products Â» All Products in your WordPress dashboard. Here, simply hover your mouse over the product to see its ID.

Back in the SeedProd page editor, click to select the ‘Add To Cart’ block and then add the ID to the ‘Product ID’ box.

You can also enable the ‘Direct to Checkout’ slider, so the shopper will go straight to your store’s checkout.

At this point, you can change how the button looks using the settings in the left-hand menu. For example, you can change its color scheme, button text, alignment, and more.

After that, it’s a good idea to add a heading that promotes your upsell product. For example, you could use something like ‘You may also be interested in’ or ‘This is the perfect addition to your order.’

Simply drag a ‘Headline’ block onto your layout.

You can then type in the messaging you want to use.

Promote Your Best-Selling WooCommerce Products

Another option is adding a best-selling products section to your thank you page. Since these products are already popular, there’s a good chance the shopper may also want to buy them.

In the left-hand menu, find the ‘Best Selling Products’ block and drag it onto your layout.

There are many other types of product grids you can add, like sale products, top-rated products, recent products, and more.

For more information, see our guide on how to display popular products in WooCommerce.

Publish your Custom WooCommerce Thank You Page

When youâ€™re happy with how the WooCommerce thank you page looks, itâ€™s time to publish it by clicking on the dropdown arrow next to â€˜Save’ and selecting ‘Publish.’

After publishing the page, you need to change the WooCommerce settings so customers get redirected to your new page.

The easiest way to do this is by using the Thanks Redirect for WooCommerce plugin. This plugin allows you to redirect customers to any URL after making a purchase.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll need to enter the URL of your custom thank you page.

To get this information, go to SeedProd Â» Landing Pages and find the thank you page you just created. You’ll find its link in the ‘URL’ column.

Once you have this information, go to WooCommerce Â» Thanks Redirect.

Here, check the ‘Enable Global Redirect’ box.

You can now type the link into the â€˜Thanks Redirect URLâ€™ box.

With that done, click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.

Now, WooCommerce will send customers to your custom thank you page when they complete an order.

We hoped this article helped you create custom WooCommerce thank you pages. You may also want to see our list of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store and our guide on how to create an email newsletter.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Easily Create Custom WooCommerce Thank You Pages first appeared on WPBeginner.
20.04.2023
How to Fix The Critical Error in WordPress (Step by Step)
Are you seeing the critical error on your WordPress site?

WordPress may sometimes show an error message saying, ‘There has been a critical error on this website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions.’ It will also include a link to the WordPress debugging guide.

In this guide, we will show you how to fix the critical error in WordPress. We will also talk about what causes this error and how to avoid it.

What Is the Critical Error in WordPress?

The critical error in WordPress is an error that stops WordPress from loading all the scripts it needs to work correctly.

Previously, this WordPress error resulted in a white screen of death or a fatal error message on the screen. Most beginners didn’t find it very helpful and struggled to resolve the issue on their own.

Since WordPress 5.2, users will now see a generic error message: ‘There has been a critical error on this website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions’ with a link to the WordPress debugging guide.

It will also send an email message to your WordPress site’s admin email address.

This email includes more details about the plugin or theme causing the error and a link to access your WordPress dashboard in recovery mode.

Another variant of this error will only show that your website is facing a critical error. It will not instruct you to check your email address.

This can happen because WordPress wasn’t able to load the files it needed to make the recovery mode available or to send the email.

What Causes the Critical Error in WordPress?

The critical error in WordPress is generally caused by a malfunctioning plugin, script, or code that prevents WordPress from functioning correctly.

Due to the malfunctioning code, WordPress is unable to load the files it needs.

If you recently copied and pasted code snippets from a tutorial to your website, they might trigger a critical error.

All top WordPress plugins are thoroughly tested, so they are less likely to cause a critical error. However, a conflict with another WordPress plugin or some custom code may trigger the error.

Let’s look at how to fix the critical error in WordPress and get your website back.

Fixing the Critical Error in WordPress (2 Methods)

The critical error message itself is not very useful for finding and fixing the issue’s cause. Luckily, WordPress also sends an email to the admin email address of your website.

Many WordPress websites are not configured to send emails using SMTP. Due to this reason, they may not get an email despite WordPress telling them that it has sent an email.

Similarly, some WordPress sites may only see the critical error message without instructions to check the email. That’s because WordPress wasn’t able to load files it needed to send an email or make recovery mode available.

If you are among those users, don’t worry. We will show you how to fix the critical error even without the email.

On the other hand, if you received the WordPress technical issue email notification, then we will show you how to make sense of it and use it to bring your website back.

Simply click the links below to skip straight to the section you need:
1. Fixing the Critical Error With WordPress Debugging Email
2. Fixing the Critical Error in WordPress Manually (Without Email)
Fixing the Critical Error With WordPress Debugging Email

First, you need to visit the inbox for your website’s WordPress administration email address.

Are you unsure which email address you used as the admin email? It is the email address you provided when installing WordPress.

If your site is on Bluehost or you used a WordPress auto-installer, your admin email address will likely be the same one you used for your WordPress hosting account.

You will see an email in your inbox with the subject line, ‘Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue.’ Inside it, you will find more helpful information about what caused the critical error on your WordPress website.

For instance, the following screenshot shows that the critical error was caused by the WordPress theme on our test site.

The email also includes a unique link that will allow you to log in to your WordPress website in recovery mode to investigate and fix the issue.

At the bottom of the email, you will see even more detailed information about the error, including the specific file and code that triggered it.

In the example below, some code on line 614 of our theme’s functions.php file is responsible for triggering the error.

Here is another example showing an error caused by a malfunctioning WordPress plugin.

As you can see, the message highlights the plugin name and the line of code causing the error.

Now, you just need to click on the link to WordPress recovery mode, which will take you to your WordPress admin area.

You will be asked to log in to continue.

Once you are logged in, you will see a notification telling you about the critical error, what caused it, and a link to where you can go to fix it.

For instance, in the following screenshot, WordPress is notifying us about the critical error caused by the plugin with a link to the Plugins page.

If you click the link, it will show you the problem plugin. It will also show you exactly which line of code caused the error.

You can go ahead and deactivate the plugin for now by clicking on ‘Deactivate’.

Then you can simply look for an alternative WordPress plugin or see if you can get support from the plugin developers.

Similarly, you will see a link to the Themes page if the problem lies with your theme. At the bottom of the page, it will say which theme is causing the issue.

You can change your WordPress theme. Alternatively, you can delete the broken one and reinstall a fresh copy of it from the official source to see if that resolves the issue.

Once you have addressed the issue, click on the ‘Exit Recovery Mode’ button at the top.

In most cases, your WordPress website would now start working normally.

However, if you still see the critical error in WordPress, you can try the troubleshooting steps in the next section.

Fixing the Critical Error in WordPress Manually (Without Email)

If you didn’t receive the WordPress critical issue notification email, then this method will teach you how to troubleshoot and fix the critical error in WordPress.

If the error was caused by a recent action you took, then you can undo that action to fix the issue.

For example, if you installed a new plugin and activating it caused the critical error, then you just need to deactivate it (we will show you how to do that in the first step below).

On the other hand, if you are unsure what caused the error, you can simply follow these steps.

1. Deactivate All WordPress Plugins

The easiest way to disable a faulty WordPress plugin is by deactivating it. However, due to the critical error, you won’t have access to the admin area or know which plugin to deactivate.

To address this, we will deactivate all WordPress plugins. Don’t worry, you can easily reactivate them once you get access to your WordPress admin area.

Simply connect to your WordPress website using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your web hosting control panel.

Once connected, you need to navigate to the wp-content folder.

Inside the wp-content folder, you will see a folder called ‘plugins’. You need to right-click on it and then select the ‘Rename’ option.

Next, change the ‘plugins’ folder name to anything you like. In our example, we will call it ‘plugins.deactivated’.

WordPress looks for the plugins folder to load the activated plugins on your website. When it cannot find the plugins folder, it simply cannot activate them and automatically sets them as deactivated.

You can now visit your website to see if the critical error message has disappeared.

Important: Don’t forget to rename the ‘plugins’ folder if the critical error issue has been resolved. WordPress will then recognize the folder, and you can reactivate the plugins one by one from the WordPress dashboard to identify which one caused the critical error.

For more details, see our tutorial on how to deactivate all WordPress plugins.

2. Switch to a Default Theme

The next step in troubleshooting the critical error is switching your WordPress theme to a default one. This will fix the critical error issue if some code in your current WordPress theme is causing the problem.

Simply go to the WordPress.org theme directory and download a fresh copy of a default theme like Twenty Twenty-Two or Twenty Twenty-Three.

Next, you need to unzip the theme file to your computer.

This will create a folder with the theme name on your computer.

Now, you need to connect to your WordPress site using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your hosting control panel.

Once you have connected, navigate to the /wp-content/themes folder, and you will see a list of all the themes installed on your website.

Go ahead and download all of these folders to your computer as a backup.

After that, you need to delete all the theme folders from your website.

Your WordPress site now doesn’t have a theme installed.

To fix this, upload the default theme folder you downloaded earlier.

Once this process has finished, you can try visiting your website.

If your WordPress theme caused the critical error, then the error message should have disappeared, and you will be able to access your website.

3. Reinstall WordPress

A corrupt WordPress core file or malware could also trigger a critical error in WordPress. The easiest way to fix this is by reinstalling WordPress.

Simply go to WordPress.org and download a fresh copy of WordPress to your computer.

After downloading the file, you need to unzip it to your computer. This will create a folder called ‘wordpress’, which contains all the files you need for the reinstall.

Next, connect to your WordPress site using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your hosting control panel.

Once connected, navigate to the root folder of your website. This is the folder that contains the wp-admin, wp-content, wp-includes, and wp-admin folders.

Now select the files inside the ‘wordpress’ folder on your computer and upload them to your website.

Your FTP client will ask if you want to overwrite these files or skip them. You need to select ‘Overwrite’ and check the box next to ‘Always use this action’.

Then, simply click on the ‘OK’ button to continue. Your FTP client will now replace your core WordPress files with fresh copies from your computer.

Once it has finished, you can try visiting your website to see if this resolves the error.

If the critical error was caused by a corrupt WordPress core file or malware, then the error message should disappear now.

4. Turn On Debugging in WordPress

WordPress comes with a built-in debugging system that allows you to catch errors, log them, and troubleshoot issues.

To turn it on, you need to edit the wp-config.php file. Just locate the following line:
```
define( 'WP_DEBUG', false );
```
Now, go ahead and replace this line with the following code:
```
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'SCRIPT_DEBUG', true );
```
If you visit your WordPress website now, it will show you debugging information and the critical error message.

Debug mode not only shows errors but warnings and notices too. This helps you find out what is causing the problem so that you can fix it.

5. Increase PHP Memory Limit

Your web hosting server is like any other computer. It needs memory to efficiently run multiple applications at the same time.

If your server doesn’t have enough resources to run PHP, then it may crash or become unresponsive. This could trigger a critical error in WordPress.

To fix this, you can increase the PHP memory limit by telling your hosting server to use more memory for PHP.

You can do that by entering the following line into your wp-config.php file.
```
define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M' );
```
Don’t forget to save and upload your changes to the server.

For more details, you can see our tutorial on how to increase PHP memory limit in WordPress.

Now, you can try visiting your website to see if this has resolved the critical error.

6. Upgrade Your PHP Version

WordPress requires PHP version 7.4 or greater. If your WordPress hosting server uses an older version of PHP, it may not work well and cause a critical error.

If you have access to the WordPress recovery mode, you can see which PHP version your site is using by visiting the Tools Â» Site Health page and switching to the Info tab.

From here, scroll down to the Server section and click to expand it.

There, you will see the PHP version installed on your hosting server.

If it is lower than 7.4, then you need to update the PHP version.

Most good WordPress hosting companies allow you to easily do that from your hosting account control panel. For details, please see our article on how to update your PHP version on popular WordPress hosting platforms.

We hope this article helped you troubleshoot and fix the critical error in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress site or our expert comparison of the best business phone services for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Fix The Critical Error in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.
17.04.2023
How to Create a Custom WordPress Search Form (Step by Step)
Do you want to create a custom search form for your WordPress website?

Search is how most users find relevant and interesting content on your site. If they canâ€™t easily find what they’re looking for, then they may move on to a different website.

In this article, weâ€™ll show you how to improve your website search by creating a custom WordPress search form.

Why Create a Custom Search Form for WordPress?

WordPress comes with a built-in search feature. However, it doesnâ€™t search all types of content such as comments, product reviews, or custom post types.

This may stop the visitor from finding what theyâ€™re looking for, including products they may want to buy on your online store.

You may also want to prioritize some content over others, so that it appears higher in the search results. For example, you may want to show your site’s latest posts at the top of the search results page, or display your most popular WooCommerce products.

With that in mind, let’s see how you can customize the WordPress search form. We cover a lot of ground in this post, so simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the section you want to read.
How to Customize the WordPress Search Alogrithm

The easiest way to improve the built-in WordPress search algorithm is by using SearchWP.

SearchWP is the best WordPress search plugin. It’s easy to use and gives you complete control over your site’s search algorithm, so you can help visitors find what they’re looking for, fast. It also searches content that WordPress ignores by default.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to SearchWP Â» Settings and then click on the â€˜Generalâ€™ tab.

Here, you need to enter your license in the â€˜License Keyâ€™ box. You can find this information in your account on the SearchWP site.

Once you’re done, click the â€˜Verify Keyâ€™ button.

Customizing the Search Engine

After activating the plugin, you can fine-tune how SearchWP indexes, searches, and displays your content. You can think of this as creating a custom Google search algorithm thatâ€™s just for your WordPress blog or website.

To start, head over to SearchWP Â» Algorithm.

Here, youâ€™ll see a section for the different content types that SearchWP searches by default, including pages, posts, and media files.

To include more content types in the search results, click on the â€˜Sources & Settingsâ€™ button.

You’ll now see a popup with all the different content types SearchWP can search. For example, you can make blog comments searchable in WordPress.

Depending on the WordPress plugins you’ve installed, you may see some extra options. For example, if you’re using WooCommerce then you can include ‘Products’ in the SearchWP search results.

For more on this topic, see our guide on how to make a smart WooCommerce product search.

Simply go ahead and check the box next to each content type you want to include in the search results.

You’ll also notice that ‘Keyword Stems’ is selected by default. This means SearchWP may include results that don’t have the same ending as the search term.

For example, if you search for ‘run’ then keyword stemming will include ‘running,’ and ‘runners’ in the results.

This can help show relevant results to visitors, so we recommend leaving the ‘Keyword Stems box checked. However, you can uncheck it if you want to show exact matches only.

When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered into the popup, click on ‘Done.’

You’ll now see a section for all the sources you selected.

Each section has its own ‘Applicable Attribute Relevance’ sliders.

This is the weight that SearchWP will give to each attribute when creating the search results.

Content that matches an attribute with high relevancy will appear higher in the search results. By contrast, content that matches an attribute that has less relevancy will appear lower in the userâ€™s search results.

To give an attribute greater weight, simply move its slider to the right. In the following image, the search engine will place more value on matches that it finds in the post title, compared to matches that it finds in the post’s content.

Every WordPress website is unique, so you may want to try different relevancy settings to see what gives you the most accurate and helpful search results.

For example, if youâ€™ve uploaded your menu as a PDF on your restaurant website, then this is important content and youâ€™ll typically want to show it high in the search results.

You can also create rules that determine whether certain content is included or excluded from the search results. For example, if you have an online marketplace then you may want to exclude the account page, checkout page, and thank you page.

Simply click the ‘Edit Rules’ button in the section where you want to create the rule. For example, in the following image, we’re adding a new rule to the ‘Posts’ section.

This opens a popup where you can edit the search engine rules.

To go ahead and create your first rule, click on the â€˜Add Ruleâ€™ button.

You can now choose the content you want to include or exclude from relevant search results.

To start, open the first dropdown menu and choose either ‘Only show entries if’ or ‘Exclude entries if’ depending on the kind of rule you want to create.

You can now use the rest of the settings to specify the content you want to exclude or include. For example, if you wanted to include or exclude a specific category then youâ€™d type in the category name.

You can also type in any custom taxonomies you want to exclude or include.

To exclude or include specific post tags from the search results, simply open the dropdown menu and select â€˜Tags.â€™

Then, type in the tag’s name.

To add another rule, just click the â€˜Add Ruleâ€™ button and repeat the same process described above. When youâ€™re happy with how the rules are set up, click â€˜Done.â€™

You can now create rules for other content types such as media and pages, by scrolling to their sections and clicking on their ‘Add Rule’ buttons.

When you’re happy with how the search algorithm is set up, scroll to the top of the page and click on â€˜Save.’

SearchWP will now rebuild the index. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and your WordPress hosting provider, this may take a few minutes.

As soon as you see â€˜Index Status 100%,â€™ youâ€™ll know that SearchWP has added all your content and rules to the search index.

Create Custom Search Forms For Your WordPress Website

By default, all the search forms on your WordPress website will use the new SearchWP algorithm you created in the previous section. This means that visitors will start seeing more accurate and relevant results straight away.

However, for even better results you may want to create advanced search forms for different kinds of content. For example, you might create a smart WooCommerce product search form that looks at particular product categories only.

You can also create an advanced search form for custom post types. For example, we’ve created a custom post type search form for our Deals and Glossary pages.

Each form will override the default WordPress search algorithm, so you can create as many different forms as you want with unique settings.

How to Create a Custom Search Form

To get started, head over to SearchWP Â» Search Forms and click the â€˜Add Newâ€™ button.

This creates a new search form, ready for you to customize. For example, if you run a review website, then you might create a form that searches for product review posts and ignores other content like your blog posts and media. This can help visitors find what they’re looking for, faster.

Now, give the form a unique name by clicking on the small pencil icon next to â€˜Search Form 1â€™.

You now type in a name for the custom search form.

This is just for your reference so you can use anything that helps you identify the form in the WordPress dashboard.

After that, you can choose a layout using the â€˜Layout Themeâ€™ thumbnails.

Some of these layouts are designed for specific search forms. For example, if you are creating a form that searches by category in WordPress, then â€˜Category Search’ already has many of the settings you need.

Simply click on the different themes to see a preview of how this form will look on your website. After making your decision, scroll to the â€˜Custom Stylingâ€™ section.

The settings you see may vary depending on your theme layout. For example, if you selected â€˜Quick Searchâ€™, then the â€˜Quick Searchâ€™ setting will be enabled by default.

You can disable and enable the different options using their toggles. The preview will update automatically as you make changes, so you can see what works best for your website.

Depending on your layout and the kind of form you want to create, you may need to enable and disable some of the â€˜Custom Stylingâ€™ settings. For example, if you want to create a form that searches by category, then click to enable the â€˜Category Searchâ€™ toggle.

After that, find the â€˜Select Categoryâ€™ field and type in each category that you want to include in the search results. For example, if you run an online store, then you may want to create forms that search specific product categories.

If you want to allow visitors to filter their search results using factors like the author, post type, and tag, then you will need to click to enable the â€˜Advanced Searchâ€™ toggle.

After that, scroll to the â€˜Advanced Search Filter/sâ€™ field. By default, SearchWP allows visitors to filter their results using Authors, Post Types, and Tags.

To remove any of these filters, just click on its â€˜Xâ€™ button. If you want to add more filters, then simply type their names into the field.

Then, when the right option appears in the dropdown, give it a click.

By default, SearchWP will search all the media, pages, and posts on your WordPress website. If you’ve created any custom post types, then you can include them in the search results using the ‘Type of search’ field.

Simply go ahead and type in each custom post type that you want to include. When the right custom post type appears, click to add it to the search.

Do you want to exclude media, pages, or posts from the search results?

Then just click the small â€˜Xâ€™ next to â€˜Mediaâ€™, â€˜Pagesâ€™, or â€˜Postsâ€™.

By default, SearchWP will show a generic â€˜Enter keyword and searchâ€™ message before the visitor enters a search query.

You can replace this with your own messaging by typing into â€˜Field Labelâ€™.

When you are happy with these settings, scroll to the â€˜Form Styleâ€™ section.

Here, you can choose between different form styles, add a border, and change the font size.

Under â€˜Button Style,â€™ you can customize the â€˜Searchâ€™ button that appears in the form.

There are more settings that you can use to change how the form looks and acts. However, this is all you need to create an advanced custom search form.

When you’re happy with how the form is set up, you can scroll to the top of the screen and click on â€˜Saveâ€™ to store your settings.

To create more custom search forms with unique settings, simply repeat the exact same process described above.

Add a Custom Search Form to Any Page, Post, or Widget-Ready Area

You can add an advanced search form to any page, post, or widget-ready area using the Search Form block.

As an example, let’s see how you can add a search form to a post. Simply open the post in the WordPress content editor and click on the â€˜+â€™ icon. Then, type in â€˜Search Formâ€™.

When the right block appears, give it a click.

You can now open the â€˜Select a Formâ€™ dropdown and choose the form you want to use.

When you are ready to make the search form live, just click on either â€˜Updateâ€™ or â€˜Publishâ€™. Now, simply visit this page or post to see the search form in action.

To add a search form to a widget-ready area, head over to Appearance Â» Widgets. Here, click the â€˜+â€™ block icon in the area where you want to show the search form.

Then, type in â€˜Search Formâ€™.

When the right block appears, click to add it to the widget-ready area.

You can now open the dropdown menu and choose the search form that you want to use.

When you are finished, just click the â€˜Updateâ€™ button to make the search form live.

For more detailed instructions, please see our guide on how to add and use widgets.

Adding Live Ajax Search to a Custom Search Form

Many online marketplaces and websites use live Ajax search. This automatically shows possible search results as the user types in the custom form, similar to how search engines such as Google work.

With Ajax live search, you can show relevant results without even reloading the page. This makes it a great choice if you sell digital downloads or physical products online, as shoppers can instantly see products that match their search query.

The easiest way to add Ajax live search to WordPress is by using SearchWP Live Ajax Lite Search. This free plugin automatically adds instant search to your website and works perfectly with any WordPress theme.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the default WordPress search form will automatically use the Ajax live search feature. If you visit your site and start typing into the search bar, then youâ€™ll see instant search in action.

For more detailed instructions, please see our guide on how to add live Ajax search to your WordPress site.

Using Advanced Settings for SearchWP

Next, it’s a good idea to enable some advanced settings that will make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for.

To do this, go to SearchWP Â» Settings and scroll to the â€˜General Settingsâ€™ section.

Here, you can activate any of the following settings:
- Partial matches. With this setting enabled, SearchWP will display results that arenâ€™t an exact match for the visitorâ€™s search query.
- Closest match. After enabling partial matches, you can also show the closest matches when a search has no results.
- â€œQuotedâ€ searches. This allows visitors to search for exact phrases using quotes.
- Highlight terms. Automatically highlights the search terms to help visitors find what theyâ€™re looking for.
Measuring Search Results and Improving Conversions

To help you fine-tune your websiteâ€™s search, itâ€™s a good idea to monitor how visitors are using the search feature. This allows you to see whatâ€™s working and whatâ€™s not working on your WordPress blog, so you can constantly improve your siteâ€™s search and help visitors find what they are looking for.

This data can even help you generate blog post ideas by showing the content that visitors are already searching for.

To see the search history and most popular search terms, simply select â€˜Statisticsâ€™ in the left-hand menu.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to create a custom WordPress search form. You may also want to see our picks of the best live chat software for small businesses and our guide on how to get a free business email address.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Custom WordPress Search Form (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.
15.04.2023
Creating a Multilingual Website Using WPML

WPML is the ultimate solution for creating a multilingual website effortlessly. With an improved WordPress core, WPML manages translated content effectively, allowing you to share your website’s content with readers worldwide in their preferred language. WPML’s added functionality expands your website’s reach, making it more appealing to a broader audience with minimal effort.

The post “Creating a Multilingual Website Using WPML” first appeared on WP Mayor.

13.04.2023
How to Properly Use Heading Tags in WordPress (H1-H6 Explained)
Are you wondering about the proper way to use H1-H6 heading tags in WordPress?

When you use headings effectively in your posts and pages, you make your content more readable, improve user experience, and boost your websiteâ€™s SEO.

In this article, weâ€™ll show you how to properly use heading tags in WordPress.

What Are Heading Tags in WordPress?

Heading tags are HTML elements used to identify the title and headings on a webpage.

Both visitors and search engines will understand your content better when your posts and pages contain headings. When you add headings correctly, you can improve the postâ€™s SEO, so it ranks higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

You add a logical structure to your posts by using different heading levels. Post titles will use H1 tags, and you typically use H2 tags for the main headings and H3 tags for subheadings.

When viewing a webpage as HTML, heading tags look like this:
```
<h1>Post Title</h1>
<h2>Heading</h2>
<h3>Subheading</h3>
<h4>And so on</h4>
```
However, you can easily add heading tags to your WordPress posts and pages without using code.

We cover this step-by-step in our guide on how to change the font size in WordPress.

The sizes and colors of the different heading styles are controlled by your themeâ€™s stylesheet, and weâ€™ll show you how to customize their appearance below.

With that being said, letâ€™s take a look at how to properly use H1-H6 heading tags in WordPress. Here is a quick overview of what weâ€™ll cover in this guide:
1. Use Headings and Subheadings to Structure Your Content

Headings help you create a logical structure for a post or page. They guide your readers through the article by briefly describing the main sections of the topic and how they relate to one another.

You can use up to six hierarchical heading levels to structure your content:
- H1 tags are the most important and there should be only one H1 heading in a post. This tag is used for the post title, and you can learn how to add and optimize your titles in our guide on SEO titles and H1 post titles in WordPress.
- H2 headings are the main headings and are used in the different sections of a post. If you need to split these sections up into subsections, then you can use H3 tags. Most themes will display H3 subheadings in a smaller font than H2 headings.
- Most posts only need two or three levels of headings, so you may never use heading tags H4 to H6 on your WordPress website. However, they can be used to provide further structure in very long posts or academic articles.
Structuring your posts in this way helps both website visitors and search engine crawlers quickly grasp the context of your content. A well-structured post may be ranked higher on search engine results pages.

Tip: Make sure you use heading tags to structure your article, and not simply for formatting, such as making a block of text larger. For more on formatting text, see our guide on how to easily change the font size in WordPress.

2. Customize the Appearance of Headings to Grab Attention

Using headings in your content is a great way to grab user attention with a larger-size font. In most WordPress themes, headings are in a larger font than regular body text. They allow you to break your posts and pages into sections.

You can also customize the appearance of your headings, so they stand out even more. For example, you can attract attention to your headings by adding color, especially with H1, H2, and H3 headings.

Some themes offer preset font choices that will change the font on your entire website.

Besides that, you can also change fonts for individual elements on your theme. For example, you can use a different font for the body text and headings. There are even options to use separate fonts for each heading level.

For more details, see our guide on how to change fonts in your WordPress theme.

3. Use Headings to Improve Readability and User Experience

No one likes a wall of text. The easiest way to make your content more readable is by breaking it up using headings and short paragraphs.

This makes it easier to read and understand your content. It also helps your users scan through the article quickly and find the sections they want to read more thoroughly.

These factors will increase page views and reduce bounce rate, which is good for SEO.

Checking the Readability of Your Headings Using All in One SEO

The best way to check the readability of your post is by using All in One SEO (AIOSEO). It’s the best WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website for search engines and social media platforms.

Note: The free version of AIOSEO will show you if your post contains enough headings, and also let you set a focus keyphrase as we cover below. However, the extra features of the premium version will get your site ranking even higher on search engines.

Once you have installed and configured All in One SEO, simply scroll down below the post content to the AIOSEO General Settings area.

You will find a â€˜Page Analysisâ€™ section that gives you a list of actionable tasks you can follow to make the post rank higher. It includes tabs for â€˜Basic SEO,â€™ â€˜Title,â€™ and â€˜Readability,â€™ and each tab shows you how many errors you need to fix in that category.

The ‘Readability’ tab offers suggestions on how to improve readability, such as including images, shortening paragraphs and sentences, using transition words, adding subheadings, and more. Items marked with a red cross need more work.

Under â€™Subheading distributionâ€™, you will be given feedback on any steps you need to take to improve the headings in the post, such as:
- â€˜1 section of your text is longer than 300 words and is not separated by any subheadings. Add subheadings to improve readability.â€™
- â€˜You are not using any subheadings, but your text is short enough and probably doesnâ€™t need them.â€™
- â€˜Great job!â€™
You should aim to get a green checkmark next to every item under the Page Analysis section to improve the postâ€™s SEO.

4. Optimize Your Headings for SEO by Adding Appropriate Keywords

Adding headings to your blog posts is great for your siteâ€™s SEO. Thatâ€™s because search engines give headings more weight than normal paragraph text. Google will try to use the content of your headings to better understand the topic you are writing about.

You can optimize your headings for SEO by adding appropriate keywords. These are the keywords users will search for when looking for your content. You can learn how to find them in our guide on how to do keyword research for your WordPress blog.

But itâ€™s important that you donâ€™t just add random keywords to your headings. Only use keywords when they make sense and clearly describe what that part of the post is about.

Checking Whether Your Headings are SEO Optimized Using All in One SEO

You can use All in One SEO‘s SEO Analysis feature to check whether you have used enough keywords in your headings.

First, you need to add a focus keyword to your post. Simply scroll to AIOSEO Settings under the post content, then type the post’s most important keyword next to â€˜Focus Keyphrase.â€™

The plugin will then analyze your content for the keyword, show you a score, and give suggestions on how to improve your ranking.

Among other things, All in One SEO will show you if your post has a healthy number of keyword-optimized H2 and H3 subheadings.

You can also use All in One SEO to optimize the post title. For more details, see our guide on how to use a headline analyzer in WordPress to improve SEO titles.

Besides adding keywords, we also recommend making your headline catchy and click-worthy. Thatâ€™s because your organic click-through rate (CTR) plays an important role in SEO.

5. Automatically Create a Table of Contents From Headings

A table of contents is a clickable list of the headings contained in a post. They make it easier to jump between the sections of a long article, improving navigation through your content.

When your visitors click a link in the table of contents, they will be taken immediately to that heading in the article. This allows users to quickly move to the content they are interested in.

All in One SEO can save you time by automatically generating the table of contents based on your subheadings, while also making it completely customizable with editable links.

When editing your post, youâ€™ll need to click the blue â€˜+ â€™ icon and locate the â€˜AIOSEO â€“ Table of Contentsâ€™ block. Simply drag the block onto the post or page where you wish the table of contents to appear.

The plugin will automatically identify the headings on the page and add them to your table of contents. If you use different heading levels (say H2 and H3), then lower-level headings will be indented to show the structure of your content.

If you are still writing the contents of your post or page, then any headings added to the document will be automatically added to the table of contents. Also, any changes that you make to the headings themselves will be reflected in the ToC block.

For step-by-step instructions, see our guide on how to create a table of contents in WordPress posts and pages.

6. Optimize Headings to Rank for Google Featured Snippets

Organizing your heading tags well may help your content rank for Google featured snippets. These are highlighted results that are shown at the top of the search results page.

Google was able to pull the headings from the above post to create the number list you see on the search results page, earning this post a featured snippet.

This will help you get the maximum SEO traffic since a user is more likely to click on a featured snippet than a plain search result.

For tips on ranking for featured snippets, see our guide on how to get a Google Featured Snippet with your WordPress website.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About Heading Tags in WordPress

Here are some of the most common questions our readers ask us about heading tags.

What is the difference between H1 and H2 in WordPress?

H1 is used for the post title, and this should be the only H1 heading in a post. H2 is used for the main headings throughout a post. For many blog posts, H1 and H2 are the only heading tags you will need.

What are the six types of headings in WordPress?

There are six types of heading tags in WordPress, and they are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. The H1 tag is used for the title and H2-H6 can be used for different levels of headings and subheadings throughout the post.

You donâ€™t need to use all six levels of headings in a post. However, you shouldnâ€™t skip a level. For example, when you use H2 for headings, you should use H3 for subheadings, and not skip straight to H4.

What is the difference between H1 and TITLE in WordPress?

The title you type at the top of a post or page is an H1 heading. However, when search engines display the post in search results, they will use a different title identified by a TITLE tag rather than H1. This is known as the SEO title or meta title.

You can add a meta title to your post using an SEO plugin such as All in One SEO. You can learn more in our guide on the difference between SEO titles and H1 post titles in WordPress.

How do I create an H1 heading in WordPress?

When you create a new post or page in WordPress, you will see the words â€˜Add titleâ€™ at the top of the page. Simply type the post title on this line to add an H1 heading.

While it is possible to create additional H1 headings using Heading blocks, we donâ€™t recommend using more than one H1 tag.

How many H2 headings should a WordPress post have?

H2 headings are used to break up a long post and make it more readable, and there are no rules about how many you should use. In fact, if your post is only a few paragraphs long, then you may not need to add H2 headings at all.

The All in One SEO plugin has a Page Analysis feature that can check your blog post for readability. In general, if you have 300 words of text or more without a heading, it will recommend adding more headings or subheadings.

Do heading tags affect your WordPress websiteâ€™s SEO?

Yes, the title of your blog post is extremely important for search engine optimization (SEO). A powerful title can get people to click on the link to visit your website, so we recommend you use a headline analyzer to create engaging titles that get more clicks.

H2-H6 headings can also impact SEO. They improve user experience, and this improves SEO. Adding appropriate keywords to your headings may also help your post rank higher.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to properly use H1-H6 heading tags in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter, or our expert pick on the best SEO plugins and tools.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Properly Use Heading Tags in WordPress (H1-H6 Explained) first appeared on WPBeginner.
11.04.2023
Engagement Tips to Woo Clients and Extend the Honeymoon Phase
Having a brilliant website isnâ€™t enough. Even if your business came with a substantial, pre-existing customer base (and letâ€™s face it, most donâ€™t), continuing communication is essential for retainment and growth.

Running a successful business means building and maintaining a connection with your clients â€“ existing and potential.

There are, of course, many ways to reach your business prospects in todayâ€™s digital world: paid ads, social media, real-time messaging platforms, chat, and more.

But would you be shocked to learn that email â€“ approaching its 45th birthday! â€“ remains the most used, most successful platform for customer engagement?

According to Tom Wozniak, of OPTIZMO Technologies: As audience tracking and targeting become more challenging, the email address will continue to be the most valuable piece of audience identification data. [Forbes]

In this article, weâ€™re going to look at why email is the most effective way to promote, proffer, and position your business for prime growth. Plus, weâ€™ve hand-picked a selection of WordPress plugins that handle the various outreach tasks quite effectively.

Keep reading, or jump ahead to any section:
Okay, off we go to the electronic post office…

Which (Customer Acquisition) Channel is Best to Watch

The ways in which you reach your audience are your customer acquisition channels. They are also the avenues for increasing your customer base.

Though some might rule it out because itâ€™s the oldest, email remains one of the best acquisition channels available. [Lesson: Donâ€™t throw the ~~baby~~ granddaddy out with the bathwater.]

Email is simultaneously simple yet powerful in terms of content that can be delivered. And itâ€™s separate from third-party elements (eg, social media, search, etc); meaning, thereâ€™s no algorithm to work around. Itâ€™s a straight shot into the hands (ie, inboxes) of your customers.

Here are some telling stats:
- By 2025, the number of global email users is expected to reach a total of 4.6 billionÂ [Statista]
- When it comes to online advertising, email has seen higher click-through rates than on social media [Statista]
- 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI [Sopro]
- 59% of survey respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions [Sopro]
Email is also extremely cost effective, allowing for a minimal investment in a tool/platform that will likely have most of the important features that mirror its high-end counterparts. Itâ€™s also easy to scale as your business grows.

With consumers averaging an online time of 397 minutes daily â€“ giving you a golden opportunity of 6+ hours for engagement â€“ there is simply no better way to speak directly with your customers than email. [Oberlo]

Email topples social media in marketing stats. [Source]

Three more stats on emailâ€™s impressive reach: [OptinMonster]
- 44% of users check their email for a deal from a company they know, whereas only 4% will go to Facebook
- 60% of consumers state that they have made a purchase as the result of a marketing message they received by email
- There are 400 million more email users than social media users
Repeat: Four hundred million MORE. If those numbers donâ€™t convince you, I donâ€™t know what will.

Now that we understand the value of email as a customer acquisition channel, letâ€™s look at the different types of emails you can employ to build relationships and drive sales. Plus, one very important bit of housekeeping that needs attention first.

How to Deliver Successful Results Easily and Reliably

Whether you run a simple website or a large eCommerce store, reliable email-sending is a necessity. As fantastic a CMS as WordPress is, it has multiple limitations when it comes to sending emails.

Because WordPress uses PHP mail functionality to send emails:
- you canâ€™t easily build HTML templates, embed images, or add attachments; and
- it lacks proper email headers, which often results in delivery impediments, causing emails to land in spam folders (or not get delivered at all)
Luckily, thereâ€™s a simple solution.

SMTP server infrastructure. [Source]

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (ie, SMTP) provides an easy way to improve successful sending of WordPress emails, increasing email deliverability by using authentication and assuring that your intended audience receives what you send.

SMTP can be set up manually using the PHPMailer library (more difficult), or connected through the use of a plugin (easier).

SMTP Plugins

There are a number of plugins for setting up SMTP in your WordPress email. After looking at the most popular, here are the five we like best.

1. WP Mail SMTP

This plugin sits at the top of this list, allowing over three million WordPress users to send their emails reliably.

When using one of WP Mail SMTPâ€™s built-in SMTP mail provider integrations (see below), emails are sent using the providerâ€™s direct API. This means even if your web host is blocking SMTP ports, your emails still send successfully, helping you fix the not-sending-email issues that are prevalent in WordPress.

An easy-to-use setup wizard and detailed documentation will guide you through the process, and for most options, you can specify the â€œfrom nameâ€ and â€œemail addressâ€ for outgoing emails.

You can send emails using your own or third-party SMTP email server, or by using integrations with popular email providers, such as:
- SendLayer
- SMTP.com
- Sendinblue SMTP
- Gmail SMTP (Gmail, Google Workspace, G Suite)
- All Other SMTP
Instead of having to use different SMTP plugins and workflows for different SMTP providers, WP Mail SMTP brings it all into one, providing the ideal SMTP solution for WordPress.

They also offer paid plans, which include additional features (like one-on-one support, white glove setup, and native integrations for Microsoft, Amazon SES, Zoho Mail, etc).

2. Easy WP SMTP

With 700,000 active installs, Easy WP SMTP resolves email deliverability issues using transactional mailers or an SMTP server.

The plugin offers configuration from a number of popular mailers, including SendLayer, Mailgun, Sendinblue, and more.

Easy WP SMTP also allows you to debug events that log any failed email sending attempts and the error that caused them, and the ability to specify a Reply-to or BCC email address.

Premium, paid versions are also available, and add more features (like shopping cart plugins, priority support, and reports).

3. Post SMTP Mailer

With active installs at 300,000 and climbing, Post SMTP Mailer is a next-generation WP Mail SMTP plugin that improves email deliverability for your WordPress websites, sending emails to millions of users worldwide.

Post SMTP has a smart setup wizard that covers everything from getting started to sending test emails. It uses a commercial-grade connectivity tester to better diagnose server issues, has a built-in email log that can help with any failed email problems, and uses OAuth 2.0 security to increase the protection of email passwords.

Post SMTP also offers premium upgraded integrations, through a number of pro extensions. These are: Zoho Mail Pro, Mail Control, Twilio, Office 365, and Amazon SES.

4. Branda

WPMU DEVâ€™s Branda plugin, known as the White Labeling wunderkind, also has an easy SMTP tool built right in, and is completely free. Setup is a cinch with our easy-to-understand documentation.

Branda allows you to customize every aspect of WordPress to fit your brand. Transform your dashboard, customize system (default) emails, quickly toggle maintenance mode and “coming soon” landing pages, change every aspect of your login screen, remove or replace logos, create color schemes, and much more. Branda has everything to rebrand WordPress for free without touching any code or hacking modifications.

There is also a pro version of Branda, if youâ€™d like to get the full collection of 30+ modules, along with a membership that includes an entire suite of plugins, premium 24/7 live chat support, and more.

5. WP Offload SES Lite

WP Offload SES Lite is trusted by more than 20,000 sites to send their email, with good reason â€“ it works exceedingly well.

This plugin is different in that itâ€™s not sent over SMTP. They believe that going the SMTP route makes you prone to hitting rate limits, and is also missing some key features (like an email queue).

WP Offload SES Lite gives you the high deliverability, powerful managed infrastructure, and low cost of Amazon SES, with the support of a quality WordPress plugin thatâ€™s easy to set up and notifies you of sending failures.

Some of WP Offload SES Liteâ€™s top features include:
- Effortless configuration with an easy step-by-step setup wizard
- Configure the default email address and name that WordPress uses for notifications
- Set up a custom â€œReply Toâ€ and â€œReturn Pathâ€ address
- View statistics on your Amazon SES send rate
There is also a pro version, which gives you additional features like premium support, open and click reporting, engagement analysis per specific emails, filter/search functionality, and more.

The Marketing Tools and Strategies You Need to Know

With your WordPress email primed and ready for most effective delivery, letâ€™s turn our attention to the best ways to engage with your audience using email.

First, you need to collect that all-important contact information (email addresses and names, at the very least), so you have a concrete way to reach interested parties.

Second, youâ€™ll want to offer something of value, to establish a sense of fairness/generosity and drive interest in what you do. This free offering to potential customers, in exchange for a piece of their personal information (e.g. an email address or social media follow), is a tried-and-true marketing technique.

Common incentives â€“ like a discount coupon, downloadable, or other item of interest â€“ can be offered as compensation for providing an email address, in order to attract potential customers. Hence the name: lead magnets.

Finally, youâ€™ll want to measure and track which campaigns or giveaways get the best results. That will give you a sense of how your site is performing; the number of visitors to your different pages, and where youâ€™re getting conversions from. All of which help you understand which content performs the best.

This is where lead generation tools come in. They are specifically designed to identify, capture, store, and analyze leads â€“ with the goal of turning visitors into paying customers, and paying customers into repeat business.

Lead Capturing Plugins

Employing tools and services specific to lead generation is a great way to collect the desired information, without requiring any manual work on your part. The tools automate the process, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.

Various methods for lead capture include:
- On-page, opt-in forms and sign-up campaigns
- Email address finders
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM); sales funnels
- Communication channels (chat)
- Advertising (social media or paid ads)
Itâ€™s not a bad idea to experiment with different options from the methods above. But for the purposes of this article, our focus will be on-page, opt-in forms, as they are the simplest to employ and incredibly successful.

Why? Well, youâ€™re collecting contact details from people who already have an interest in your business, even if itâ€™s at the most basic level. Theyâ€™re on your site, and therefore the most likely to provide you with their contact information. After all, they came looking for you, not the other way around.

Additionally, studies have shown that most people are receptive to emails that come from companies theyâ€™ve already shown an interest in.

Here are our top 5 picks for lead capturing plugins.

1. Forminator

Of course weâ€™re partial to our very own contact form, payment form and custom form builder, Forminator, but itâ€™s more than just us who think so, with more than 400,000 happy users.

Forms, polls, quizzes… nothingâ€™s off limits with Forminator. Create new campaigns in minutes with the easy-to-use, drag-and-drop form builder, using pre-fab templates or starting from scratch â€“ with the ability to customize settings, style, and behavior.

Forminator is the easiest way to create any form, such as a contact form, order form, payment form, email form, feedback widgets, interactive polls with real-time results, Buzzfeed-style â€œno wrong answerâ€ quizzes, service estimators, and registration forms with payment options.

Speaking of paymentsâ€¦ take donations, down payments, full payments, sell merch and more with the included Stripe and PayPal integrations. (No Pro upgrade required!) SCA-compliant Stripe and PayPal come included. Just enter your publish keys to activate the Forminator payment module for both fixed and variable payments.

Forminator comes stacked with crowd-favorite third-party integrations â€“ email services, CRM, storage, and project managers such as HubSpot, Google Sheets, Trello, MailChimp, AWeber, Slack, and any generic webhooks (such as Zapier).

But wait â€“ thereâ€™s more! Forminator also has these amazing features:
- Gutenberg Block â€“ say goodbye to shortcodes and quickly add forms to posts with the Forminator block for Gutenberg
- Email Routing and Pre-Populate â€“ make your site more efficient, from visitor input to email response times; use query strings to pre-fill visitor information and deliver forms direct to specific teams with email routing, auto-response and conditions
- User Front End Post Submissions â€“ visitors can submit post ideas from the front end of your site so you can easily curate and publish their thoughts
- Captchas â€“ stop the crazy bots without making it hard on your visitors (ie, no more hard-to-read random phrases)
- Collect, Track and GDPR ready â€“ store and organize submissions to sort, analyze, and manage responses; all while complying with the GDPR and other legal privacy policies
There is a pro version as well, which contains all the same features as the free version, plus the additional â€œE-Signatureâ€ and â€œStripe Subscriptionsâ€ features.

2. Formidable Forms

Formidable is a solutions-focused WordPress form plugin. Use drag and drop to create a contact form, survey, quiz, registration form, payment form, lead form, or calculator form.

Formidable is 100% mobile responsive, so your forms look great on all devices (desktop, laptop, tablets, and smartphones). Itâ€™s also optimized for speed and maximum server performance.

This free version of Formidable comes with a variety of features, like advanced email subscription forms, multi-page forms, a smart form with conditional logic, stack on repeater fields, payment integrations, form templates, relationships, and cascading dropdown fields.

Submissions are stored in your WordPress database so you wonâ€™t lose any leads, and quiz and survey entries can be viewed right from your WordPress dashboard. Also, the form generator is GDPR-friendly (even though entries are saved), and you can turn off IP tracking or stop saving submissions entirely.

Create a payment form and accept credit card payments right from your website, with seamless integration with PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. You can even create a WooCommerce form with custom fields.

There is a pro version as well, that includes many more features and functionalities that help you build more powerful and larger applications.

3. Ninja Forms

Design beautiful, complex forms with a dedicated support team at your back.

Easy drag-and-drop fields, row and column layouts, multi-page forms, conditional formsâ€¦ you donâ€™t have to be a designer to create forms that will blend beautifully with your WordPress website.

You can accept PayPal and credit card payments securely and easily from any of your WordPress forms: single payments, subscriptions, fixed, variable, or user entered amounts. Give your customers or donors all the options, or just one with a PayPal form, Stripe form, and more.

Grow your mailing lists and bring in new leads using integration with MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Salesforce CRM, Zoho CRM, Insightly CRM, and more.

Ninja Forms is also GDPR compliant, as it doesnâ€™t collect or store personally identifiable information, or any information, from your forms. Easy-to-use templates are included for Right to Be Forgotten and Data Export requests, and tie into native WordPress GDPR features for automated compliance.

Includes pre-built templates for a contact form, registration form, application form, MailChimp form, quote request form, PayPal form, Stripe form, and more. Also mobile responsive and design-adaptable to fit in with any theme or brand.

Ninja Forms offers additional features and upgrades in two ways: per add-on, or through a membership (different tiers vary in the number of allowable sites and add-ons).

4. Contact Form 7

At five million+ active installs, Contact Form 7 is the OG WordPress plugin for contact forms.

It has stood the test of time, still able to create simple and multiple contact forms, while allowing for the customisation of the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup.

Forms support Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, and do not track user data or use cookies. However, activation of certain features may invoke personal data to be sent to service providers (eg: reCAPTCHA, Stripe).

While the plugin boasts massive numbers and is still popular, it is becoming less so as more advanced, feature-rich competitors have become available. Especially since most of these are free to use as well.

Additionally, unlike newer plugins, an additional plugin is needed (they make one called Flamingo) just to save submitted messages from contact forms in the database.

They have also started requesting contributions from users, citing the difficulty in continuing support and development of a free plugin.

5. Hustle

Hustle in the ultimate marketing plugin for building a mailing list and converting site traffic.

Incredibly versatile and engaging, Hustle has a myriad of options and customizations.

Easily grow your mailing list or display targeted ads across your site with popups, opt-ins, slide-ins, widgets, and shortcodes.

Build a social following with Hustleâ€™s diverse social sharing capabilities.

Choose colors, animations, layouts, drop shadows, and display conditions for all your marketing modules from easy-to-use design settings. (Thereâ€™s even CSS if you really want to go all out.) All a cinch with Hustle’s flexible appearance settings.

Default layouts and templates are fully mobile responsive, while allowing for granular adjustments (margins, padding, borders, container sizing) so you can make every module your own.

Target visitors with email opt-ins or ads using Hustle’s behavior and condition settings, and set up intelligent conditions if desired as well (e.g. specific pages/posts, visitor device/browser, country, browser cookie, etc).

Smart triggers allow you to set up a range of options for popups and slide-ins, including time on page, scroll, exit intent, and more.

Schedule when you want your marketing modules to deploy by selecting start/end dates, or show them on specific days of the week, time of day, along with custom time zones.

Easily follow up on user engagement with manual or automated email messages, and build your following on social networks with floating widgets and shortcodes to add followers.

Hustle smoothly integrates with popular form builders (like Forminator), to embed those forms/polls/quizzes into popups and slide-ins for interactive lead generation.

While youâ€™re at it, integrate Hustle with an email service; 19 of the most popular are offered (including AWeber, MailChimp, Sendinblue, MailPoet, Zapier, and more).

Rounding out the additional features you get with Hustle:
- Gutenberg WP editor block
- ReCAPTCHA spam warrior
- Ability to override Ad Blockers that try to prevent popups and slide-ins
- Intelligent tracking on each module (including conversion stats, insightful charts, custom dashboard widget)
There is also a pro version of Hustle, which gives you all the same settings and options as the free version does. The difference is, Hustle Pro offers unlimited opt-ins, custom content, and social sharing, whereas the free version allows three of each type (popups, slide-ins, social share bars, and embeds).

Email Campaigns and Analytics Plugins

Once youâ€™ve got those all-important email addresses collected, itâ€™s time to set your sights on the various campaigns you can use to turn casual interest into a revenue stream.

There are a number of ways to use email campaigns to engage your audience and increase sales.

Blog posts can help by specifically targeting your audience, catering your content to them. Itâ€™s a proven way to align with your audience by providing (free) information of value to them, while keeping the connection warm. Plus, they can be kept in a devoted section of your website, making it easy for both old and new customers to partake in the historical canon unique to your business.

Newsletters and announcements are great for keeping your audience up to date on any site changes, or to promote particular products or discounts. Announcements could include down-time notices (for example, planned changes where your site will be offline briefly), or information about sales, coupons, special offers, etc â€“ anything that is a change in your â€˜normâ€™ that falls within a specific timeframe.

We looked at some email plugins early on, where the purpose was to improve email delivery by directing through SMTP servers or transactional mailers.

There is another category of full-featured email plugins/services that provide additional marketing, campaigning, and analysis features on top of trustworthy delivery. These can be quite handy if you want to avail yourself of pre-designed email templates, auto sending schedules, and tracking customer journeys.

Here are our favorites in this category.

1. MailPoet

More than 600,000 websites use MailPoet to keep in touch with their subscribers, delivering 30 million+ emails each month to inboxes, not spam boxes. Enjoy high open rates with their unmatched deliverability rate and rock solid infrastructure.

MailPoet works seamlessly with your favorite CMS so you can start sending emails right away. Quickly add content and images directly from your media library. No need to upload files to third-party services when itâ€™s all right there, ready to use in your WordPress dashboard.

From first hello to loyal customer appreciation, send emails to the right people at the right time. Welcome new subscribers with an automated series of onboarding emails and enjoy open rates of 40% and higher.

Automatically send email updates to let subscribers know about your latest blog posts, in your choice of sending schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) and bring them back to your website.

Create email updates and newsletters your subscribers canâ€™t wait to open with beautifully designed templates you can customize to match your personality (and brand). With plenty of design options and advanced features, you can choose from a template, customize whatever you need, then send it out. Quick previews allow you to always see how your emails look before hitting send.

MailPoet is available via paid plans as well, which add features and functionality like more subscribers, unlimited emails, advanced analytics, the ability to remove branding, priority support, and more.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot is an extremely popular, all-in-one CRM platform with tools and integrations for marketing, sales, and customer service.

The CRM in HubSpotâ€™s WordPress plugin is your siteâ€™s command center, with 360-degree views of your customers, where you can easily:
- Manage contacts (CRM)
- Engage visitors with live chat and chatbots
- Add beautiful forms to pages; create engaging email marketing campaigns
- Capture leads with custom or existing forms; send newsletters and automated marketing campaigns
- Track site health with easy-to-understand analytics, directly from the dashboard
- See a unified timeline of a contactâ€™s page views, past conversations, and more in a WordPress CRM
Youâ€™ve also got full-service email, newsletter, and marketing automation software, from which you can build professional emails in minutes, then send them to your entire contact database.

Features here include:
- 20+ pre-designed email templates to match your campaign goals
  (Choose from templates such as newsletters, ebooks, welcome emails, and more)
- Drag and drop email builder; adjust typography, designs, colors, and more to create campaigns your subscribers will love
- Email automation, tracking, and A/B testing
- Send emails anytime someone fills out a form or engages with your live chat/chatbots
- Send messages immediately or use email scheduling to send messages later
- Email tracking assures all of your emails are logged in your database; measure engagement of each with reports for open rate and click rate
Forms and popups are included, with a variety of templates (contact us, newsletter signup, ebook download, etc) and display options (embed, standalone page, pop-up box, dropdown banner, etc). Choose from a variety of settings, color schemes, and fonts â€” or start from scratch.

HubSpot also allows for integrations with other WP form builders and lead generators (like Forminator and Hustle ).

And thereâ€™s much more, such as:
- Live chat and chatbots (with custom styling, real-time messaging, Slack integration, 24/7 live support on autopilot)
- Analytics (email, traffic, WP; marketing, sales follow-ups; time-onsite)
- Reports (blog posts, landing pages, email campaigns)
- Seamless use of more than 1030 integrations â€“ including social media, ads (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn), Hotjar, YouTube, Zoom, Gmail, Hustle, MailChimp, Sendinblue, Shopify, WooCommerce, Forminator, LiveChatâ€¦ and the list goes on
In addition to their free version, which offers a taste of limited features, HubSpot offers a number of paid version packages â€“ Starter, Starter CRM Suite, Business, Professional, and Enterprise â€“ with many different combinations of features and services to suit all needs.

3. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a customer acquisition and lead generation plugin. As a SaaS, its use requires an OptinMonster account, but thatâ€™s quick to set up.

OptinMonsterâ€™s popup maker allows you to create popup campaigns, email subscription forms, sticky announcement bars like hello bar, gamified spin-a-wheel opt-in forms, and other types of interactive popups for your site. Use the drag-and-drop editor to customize the look and feel of your campaigns, or choose from hundreds of templates.

OptinMonster also offers mobile popups so your marketing messages look great on all devices (mobile, tablet, laptop, and desktop). Itâ€™s also optimized for both web and server performance.

Popup options include:
- Lightbox
- Floating Bar
- Slide-ins
- Fullscreen Welcome Mats
- Gamified Spin a Wheel Popup
- Countdown Timers
OptinMonster also has targeting behaviors, like page level targeting, geolocation targeting, popup behavior automation, and WooCommerce. Plus trigger behaviors, like exit intent, scroll trigger, and time-on-site popups.

There are also quite a few email and CRM integrations available, such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, AWeber, and more.

A free account includes three campaigns and up to 500 campaign impressions, which never expire.

OptinMonster also offers premium, paid versions which include more features and remove the limits imposed in the free version.

4. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a powerful all-in-one marketing platform, trusted by more than 165,000 companies around the world to deliver their emails and SMS messages.

Sendinblue optimizes deliverability using a proprietary infrastructure over SMTP, with options that include email, SMS, Facebook, chat, CRM, and marketing automation.

The Sendinblue WordPress plugin uses their own API to synchronize contacts, send emails and get statistics. Synchronization is automatic, so it doesnâ€™t matter whether your lists were uploaded on your WordPress interface or on your Sendinblue account: they will always remain up-to-date on both sides.

Sendinblue’s free account takes less than two minutes to set up, and allows you to send up to 300 emails per day on their free (forever) plan.

Sendinblue integrates with most lead capture and advanced form builder plugins, but also contains their own native subscription forms, with the following features:
- Form designer with WYSIWYG and direct HTML, and CSS editing (if desired)
- Integration as widget or shortcode
- Send a confirmation email â€“ you choose the template and the sender
- Use a double opt-in confirmation â€“ you choose the template and the sender
- URL redirection
- Confirmation / error message customization
The following additional options are included as well:
- Contact lists (unlimited custom fields; CSV and TXT import; advanced segmentation)
- Marketing campaigns (drag-and-drop tools; template library; advanced scheduling)
- Transactional emails (with auto replacement of default SMTP)
- Statistics (real-time and exhaustive)
Sendinblue offers a free (forever) plan that includes 9000 emails per month and unlimited contacts, with no hidden costs.

They offer premium, paid plans as well, which remove the limits, and include additional features (like removing the Sendinblue logo, A/B testing, marketing automation, priority support, and more).

Follow the Leader to the Very Top

Lead generation is often the difference between the smashing success or abject failure of a business.

And while there are many components that go into lucrative marketing, you can tap into WordPress’s generous supply of free plugins to eliminate the heavy lifting.

As shown in this post, email still holds the #1 spot when it comes to customer acquisition channels, with significant reach and conversion rates.

Determine the plugins that best meets your needs, and get going on cultivating your contact lists, securing good delivery with SMTP sends, and setting up email campaigns that drive customer engagement, traffic, retention, and loyalty.

If you want to really ensure best results, make sure you have trusted, dedicated hosting (weâ€™re a top pick for web developers), speed and SEO optimization (our memberships come with a suite of premium plugins, including performance and security), and world-class, always-on support.
11.04.2023
How to Use SMTP to Send Emails From WordPress

WordPress has a native way of sending emails. It uses the PHP mail() function to deliver all those newsletters, password resets, or any other type of email youâ€™re sending to your audience. While this method should theoretically be sufficient, itâ€™s far from perfect. In WordPress, sending emails with SMTP is a much better alternative. And […]

The post How to Use SMTP to Send Emails From WordPress appeared first on WPExplorer.

11.04.2023